Year The First
by Pied Flycatcher
Summary: Eleven year old Cloud Strife starts his first year at Hogwarts. New friends, new enemies, three headed dogs and stolen materia. Life as a wizard is never dull. AU. Complete!
1. Of Sortings and Chocobos

**(What happens when the cast of Final Fantasy VII come to Hogwarts? Read on to find out! Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Vincent, Yuffie, Cid and Barret are first-years starting at the school for witches and wizards. **

**This story roughly follows the events of Philosopher's Stone, but with alterations as I see fit. Cloud's PoV, rated for language. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own either the FF characters or the HP characters. Some dialogue is quoted directly from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. That's owned by JK Rowling.)**

Cloud could hardly believe he was here at last. His classmates-to-be gasped at the sight of the huge castle, the sound almost drowned out by the soft ripples of the lake. Cloud simply gazed at it in wonder: the turrets, the high walls, the sweeping grandness of it all. Hogwarts. His mother had told him about the school but this was the first time he had seen it, looming blackly in the night.

Maybe he would make friends here.

Mum said he would. Back in Nibelheim, he had never fitted in. He recalled with a kind of painful ache how much he had wanted to play with the Muggle children. And yet at the same time, he had always felt that he was different. Special. Because he had magic. But here, at Hogwarts, he would be with children like him.

The boats bumped gently ashore. Cloud scrambled out and followed the giant man up to the castle with the rest of the first-years. He was scary-looking, Cloud thought with a shiver. Huge, with a great black beard and tangled hair that hid most of his face. The giant man banged on the huge door leading into the castle.

A stern-looking witch answered it.

"The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall," said the giant man.

"Thank-you, Hagrid," answered the witch. "I will take them from here."

Trembling, Cloud followed everyone inside. She led them into a small, dimly lit chamber. He felt his stomach wrench with nervous anticipation.

Professor McGonagall started to tell them about the Sorting. Cloud remembered his mother's explanations of the four houses: Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. He wondered which one he would end up in.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Cloud ran a hand through his spiky blond hair. He glanced around at the other students. They all looked nervous.

"I will return when we are ready for you," Professor McGonagall continued. "Please wait quietly."

She left.

Immediately, some of the students started talking. A bushy-haired girl behind him was muttering very fast under her breath. Feeling slightly alarmed, Cloud backed away. He turned around, looking for a familiar face. Had he seen any of them on the train? He had been too shy to talk to anyone. Instead, he had spent the whole journey in a compartment by himself. But maybe they had all been making friends then, and he was too late.

Suddenly, Cloud's eyes alighted on a familiar face. A very familiar face. But it couldn't be...

"Tifa?" He said her name involuntarily, and blushed as her eyes flicked over to him.

"Cloud!" She walked over to him, beaming, while Cloud thought of all the things he could say to her. They flashed through his mind too quickly for him to grasp any of them. He just looked at her stupidly.

"Cloud, I can't believe it's really you!" said Tifa. "I didn't know you were a wizard. When did you find out?"

Cloud opened and shut his mouth a couple of times before he managed to blurt something out. "I dunno, when I was about five, I think..." His mind was still reeling from the fact that Tifa was a witch. Tifa... the pretty, popular Muggle girl who lived in his village.

"Is your mother a witch too?"

Cloud nodded.

Tifa pressed her finger to her mouth and chewed the nail thoughtfully. "I never knew... Until I got the letter from Hogwarts, I didn't know that I could do magic either. This place... is amazing, isn't it? Do you know all about it?"

Cloud felt his confidence return. Tifa was asking him about Hogwarts! She wasn't talking down to him, her stupid friends weren't there to laugh at him, and for once she was paying him attention. He realised that she must be nervous, coming to a school of magic and knowing almost nothing about it.

"Yeah, I know a few things," he said casually.

"What's this Sorting that Professor McGonagall mentioned?" Tifa looked around, her long hair swishing behind her. "I heard someone say that it's some kind of test... but I don't know how to do any magic yet."

"Don't worry," Cloud assured her. "All that happens is that your house gets chosen. You don't really have to do anything."

Tifa smiled. "Thanks, Cloud. I feel better now. Hey, do you think we'll be in the same house?"

"I don't know." But inside, he hoped they would be.

"Oh, look, she's back," said Tifa. The two of them watched the stern-looking witch hurry over to them.

"Move along now," she snapped. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

The nervous feeling in Cloud's stomach heightened as he walked through the Entrance Hall and into the Great Hall. Thousands of candles floated above the tables. A sea of students in black robes watched the line of first-years. They stopped. He glanced at Tifa standing next to him and she smiled. He felt his muscles loosen slightly.

Then the Sorting Hat was brought out. Cloud stared at it. He hadn't expected it to be so torn and dirty. His mother wouldn't have let it in the house. The brim of the Hat lifted and it began singing. It sang of the four Houses. I remember now, Cloud thought. If you're brave, you're supposed to be in Gryffindor. If you're clever, you go in Ravenclaw. Slytherins are ambitious and crafty, and Hufflepuffs are supposed to be loyal and hard-working. I don't deserve to be in any of them, he thought miserably. But I wish I could be brave...

The Hat's song finished and the Sorting began.

"Abbott, Hannah."

A girl stumbled forward out of the line and placed the Sorting Hat on her head. For a moment, as she sat on the stool, nothing happened, but then the Sorting Hat shouted "Hufflepuff!" and a chorus of cheers from the table on the right welcomed her.

Cloud watched as the line slowly dwindled. Tifa would be Sorted before him...

Terry Boot became the first Ravenclaw and then Lavender Brown became the first Gryffindor. The students cheered every new arrival. Cloud gazed up at the ceiling, which was bewitched to look like the sky outside. It was dark and cloudy.

"Gainsborough, Aerith."

A girl with long brown hair tied back with a pink ribbon stepped forward. Cloud caught a glimpse of startling emerald eyes. She was very pretty, and she moved with serene grace. When she put on the Sorting Hat, she tilted her head to one side. It looked as though the Hat was considering.

"Ravenclaw!"

The Ravenclaws applauded as the girl, smiling shyly, walked over to sit with them.

"Highwind, Cid."

A boy with sandy hair gave a lop-sided grin and hurried over to the Hat. It took longer for the Hat to make its decision this time; the boy waited for nearly a minute before it spoke.

"Gryffindor!"

As "Kisaragi, Yuffie" became a Slytherin, Cloud wondered if it was really true that Slytherins were more likely to become Dark wizards.

"Lockhart, Tifa!"

It was Tifa's turn. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before going to try the Hat on. Cloud waited, his insides squirming with anticipation.

"Ravenclaw!"

Tifa joined the Ravenclaws at their table. Maybe I'll be a Ravenclaw too, thought Cloud hopefully. He barely had time to notice "Malfoy, Draco" become a Slytherin; the Hat made an instant decision.

Cloud craned his head, trying to spot Tifa who had vanished somewhere among the other Ravenclaws. But then he heard a name he knew...

"Potter, Harry."

Murmurs and whispers filled the hall as a short, black-haired boy wearing glasses stumbled forward to try on the Hat.

"So that's him," Cloud heard a boy nearby him mutter. He stared at the boy wearing the Sorting Hat. Yes, that was him. The famous Harry Potter. And he's in my year! He might even be in my house, Cloud thought. Everyone knew the story, of course. Cloud only wished that he could have done something like that. Harry had defeated He Who Must Not Be Named when he was only a baby. Cloud watched impatiently, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy's scar when he had been Sorted. The Hat took a long time...

"Gryffindor!" it said at last, and the Gryffindor table exploded with cheers. Of course, Harry Potter would get the most applause. He looks bemused, Cloud thought, as he watched the boy join the Gryffindor table. Perhaps he's not used to the attention.

There weren't many people left to be Sorted now. Cloud clenched his fists to stop his hands trembling. Any moment now. And then his name was called.

"Strife, Cloud."

He stepped forward, almost tripping up in his haste. He sat down on the stool and placed the Sorting Head over his head. It slipped down right in front of his eyes, and now he was staring at the dark inside of the Hat instead of the candlelit Great Hall. I hope this doesn't mess up my hair, he thought anxiously.

A little voice spoke. "Mess up your hair?" the Sorting Hat wheezed. "Goodness me, aren't you the vain one! Haha... now let me see. Hmm, well you've certainly got the drive to succeed, boy. And a need to be noticed too, that's interesting."

Cloud waited, his heart pounding. What else would the Hat see in his mind? Was he weak? A coward?

"Oh no," said the Hat. "No, there's plenty of courage here, if only you could put your mind to it. A strong protective urge too. Yes, I know where to put you. In – Gryffindor!"

The Hat shouted this last word to the whole Hall. That was it. He'd been Sorted. He was in the same House as the famous Harry Potter! But as Cloud went over to join the Gryffindor table, as the sandy-haired boy called Cid made room for him, he couldn't help feeling just a twinge of disappointment that Tifa wasn't there with him.

He waited for the last few names to be called out. Vincent Valentine became a Ravenclaw. Barret Wallace joined Gryffindor and a red-haired boy, Ronald Weasley, immediately followed him. Cloud hastily shifted aside to make room. Finally, Blaise Zabini became a Slytherin and the Sorting was over.

Cloud looked over to the teachers' table. An old man with a long white beard, which was tucked into his belt, surveyed the students through half-moon glasses. Dumbledore, he thought with a start. Albus Dumbledore was said to be the greatest wizard of the age. Both Cloud's parents had spoken highly of him, at least according to his mother. Cloud could barely remember his father.

"Before we begin our banquet," said Dumbledore, "I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

"Huh?" said Cloud.

"What the hell did he mean by that?" said the hulking, dark-skinned boy next to him.

But then Cloud was distracted by the appearance of the feast. The plates filled with food. His eyes couldn't take it all in at once.

"Oh YES!" crowed Cid. "Man, I could eat a whole chocobo." He shoved roast beef into his mouth.

"What's a chocobo?" asked Cloud. He picked up a mint humbug and stared at it in bemusement.

Cid looked at him. "You know, big yellow birds. You're Cloud, right? Yeah, your hair looks kind of like a chocobo."

"Chocobo-head!" said Barret. He guffawed.

Cloud blushed and ruffled his spikes. He _knew_ the Sorting Hat had messed up his hair.

He looked across the table, and saw Harry and the red-haired boy sitting next to each other. They were talking to a rather pompous-looking ghost. He tried to make out Harry's scar, but the boy's messy black fringe hid it. Well, at least I have better hair than him, Cloud thought.

He concentrated on eating his dinner, which was delicious. It wasn't long before the plates were wiped clean and then the puddings appeared. The others were talking about their families.

"I'm half-and-half," said Cid. "Yup, my dad was a Muggle. My mum didn't tell him she was a witch until after they were married. Bastard nearly walked out on us."

Cloud decided it was about time he entered the conversation. After all, he'd be living with these boys for seven more years.

"My mother's a witch," he offered hesitantly.

Barret and Cid looked at him. Then Barret said, "Yo, who asked you, chocobo-head?"

Cloud clenched his fists. He would have liked to pick a fight with Barret, but the boy was much bigger than him and he didn't want to cause a scene at the feast.

"Hey, are you calling him names?" said a voice.

Cloud looked up. It was Harry talking, and his green eyes were narrowed at Barret.

"Chocobo-head?" interrupted the red-haired boy. He smothered a laugh. "What does that mean?"

"It's nothing, we're just messing," said Barret cheerfully. He patted Cloud on the back. "Right, spiky?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Hey, you're Ron Weasley, ain't ya?" said Cid to the red-haired boy. "I heard that you've got a really big family, and you all have red hair. Is that right?"

"Yeah," said Ron, who for some reason looked moody at the mention of his family. "Three of 'em are already here – Percy, Fred and George. I'm the sixth one in my family to come to Hogwarts."

Cid whistled, but at that moment they were interrupted by Dumbledore. The old wizard had stood up to make the start-of-term announcements. Gradually, the Hall fell silent. The nervous feeling in Cloud's stomach had subsided; he was now comfortably warm and full.

The announcements were the usual thing – Cloud knew what to expect from his mother's stories of Hogwarts – no students allowed in the Forbidden Forest, stuff like that. Until, that is, Dumbledore said, "And I advise you all to stay away from the forbidden corridor on the third floor unless you wish to die a very painful death."

He smiled benignly. A few students chuckled uncertainly, but as far as Cloud could tell, the old man was serious. Odd, he thought. But he didn't have time to muse on it, for Dumbledore clapped his hands immediately afterwards and ordered them to go to bed. As one, the students rose noisily. Cloud let the tide of Gryffindor students sweep him out of the Great Hall. He was here at last.

**(A/N: Cloud takes on Neville's role in this story, and Cid and Barret replace Seamus and Dean. Next chapter... it's time for flying lessons.)**


	2. Of Broomsticks and Materia

**(Some of this chapter will be familiar to you because most of what happens to Neville in Philosopher's Stone happens to Cloud. I have changed some details to fit in with the Final Fantasy characters, and Cloud also gets his own storyline apart from what we see of Neville in the book. **

**Disclaimer: Same as for the first chapter. I own none of the characters. Except Ghost. She's entirely my own creation.)**

Cloud walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast. He had been at Hogwarts for over a week now, and he was already quite familiar with the boys in his dormitory. But, he reflected miserably, he hadn't really managed to make friends with any of them. There were four others: Harry, Ron, Barret and Cid. Cloud was the odd one out. Barret and Cid had immediately become friends and it looked as though Harry and Ron already knew each other when they arrived at Hogwarts.

He sat down at the Gryffindor table. Today would be their first flying lesson. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. He didn't feel like he'd been good at anything he'd done in any of his other lessons so far. He wanted to be the best. Perhaps he would discover a talent for flying.

As he ate his breakfast, he listened to Cid boasting about his flying exploits.

"Yeah, it's piss easy once you get the hang of it," Cid was saying. "Ain't no-one gonna touch my baby. Cleansweep Six, flies like a dream. One of these days I'm gonna invent a broomstick that can fly you to the moon."

"Gonna try out for the Quidditch team?" asked Barret.

"Nah, first-years never get in. Maybe later on."

"My mother never let me buy a broomstick," said Cloud wistfully. "She said she couldn't risk someone from the village spotting it."

"Damn shame, Chocobo-head," said Cid.

Harry and Ron joined them at the table.

"How you feelin' 'bout the flying lessons, Harry?"

Harry shrugged, but his eyes shone with excitement. "Looking forward to it."

Just then, the post owls arrived. Cloud looked up automatically. He hadn't received anything from his barn owl, Ghost, so far, but today he spotted her pale form amongst the other birds. She flew down and dropped a round package into his lap.

"What's that?" said Ron. The others leaned forward as Cloud unwrapped the package. He ripped the brown paper off to reveal a small, green orb. As Cloud lifted it up towards the light, it shone eerily.

"What _is_ that?" asked Harry.

"It's a materia!" said Cloud. "Mum must have sent it to me. It contains magic, and it helps you to cast spells."

"Whoa, those things are really rare," said Cid. "What kind is it?"

Cloud enclosed the Materia in his palms and concentrated. "It's... a Restore materia. For healing spells."

"Bet that'll come in useful," said Ron. Cloud looked at him but he couldn't tell whether the boy was being sarcastic or not.

Just then, a blond-haired boy passed by their table and snatched up the materia.

"What's this, Strife?" he sneered.

"Hey!" said Cloud. He recognised the boy; his name was Draco Malfoy and they had been in a few of the same lessons. Both Harry and Ron narrowed their eyes at Malfoy, but before anyone could do anything Professor McGonagall swept over.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing," muttered Malfoy and he dropped the materia back into Cloud's outstretched hand and slouched off. Cloud stared after him, wondering why everybody seemed to be against him.

**xxxxx**

Cloud walked down to the grounds with the other Gryffindors for his first flying lesson. The Slytherins were already there. Twenty broomsticks lay on the ground waiting for them.

Their teacher was called Madam Hooch. She was a stern, eagle-eyed witch with a brisk manner.

"Each of you stand by a broomstick," she instructed them.

The class obeyed.

"Now stick your hand over the broomstick and say 'Up'."

"Up!" said Cloud. But all his broomstick did was roll over on the ground. He glanced sideways at the person next to him. It was Harry, and his broomstick had leapt into his hand immediately. Cloud sighed.

Next, Madam Hooch told them how to mount their broomsticks.

"Now when I give the signal, I want you to kick off from the ground, rise about ten feet into the air, and then point your brooms down to come back to the ground."

Cloud steeled himself. This couldn't be that hard, right? Not if Cid could do it.

"One, two..."

But suddenly there was a high-pitched squeal. A girl had panicked and shot into the air early. Her short black hair blew wildly as she careened this way and that. A couple of the Slytherin girls had their hands over their mouths.

"Come down!" shouted Madam Hooch.

But with a final scream, the girl fell off her broom. Cloud rushed forward but he couldn't get there in time to catch her. She hit the grass with a sickening thud.

"Yuffie!" said one of the Slytherin girls.

"Is she going to be all right?"

Madam Hooch pulled Yuffie up. "Come on, we'd better get you to the hospital wing."

Yuffie groaned, her face sickly. "I hate... flying."

"Don't anyone so much as touch their brooms until I get back," Madam Hooch warned them. "Or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch'!"

Yuffie clutched the teacher's arm and hobbled off.

"I hope she'll be okay," said Parvati, a Gryffindor girl.

"She'll be fine," another girl assured her. "Yuffie gets travel sick really easily. She doesn't want to learn how to fly."

Cloud listened, ashen-faced. The incident had reminded him of how, only three years ago, he had followed Tifa to Mount Nibel, and she had fallen. He hadn't been able to save her then either. She had been in a coma for a week.

Then he noticed Draco Malfoy, standing near where Yuffie had fallen, tossing his materia from hand to hand.

"Is this yours, Strife?" he asked, smirking.

"Yeah, it is!" said Cloud, sounding braver than he felt. "That's my materia, so give it back!"

"Oh, so this is materia?" said Malfoy. "I'm sure Yuffie would like this. She's always going on about collecting materia. You should give it her as a get-well present, Strife."

Harry stepped up to Malfoy. "Give him the materia back, Malfoy," he said quietly. Cloud's heart leapt. Harry was sticking up for him.

"You know what?" said Malfoy. "I don't think I will." He looked around, a malicious smile on his face. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Strife to collect – how about – up a tree?"

"Give it back, Malfoy," snarled Harry.

But Malfoy walked over to his broomstick, mounted it, and took off. Cloud gasped. The blond boy was a good flier. He came to a stop hovering in mid-air and waved the materia tauntingly at them. Harry picked up his own broomstick.

"No – don't bother, Harry," Cloud cried.

But Harry had already taken off. The whole class watched in amazement as he came to hover opposite Malfoy.

"Yo, I thought he said he'd never flown before," Cloud heard Barret mutter.

"Sure as hell don't look like it," replied Cid.

"Catch it if you can then!" said Malfoy, and he threw the materia into the air.

Desperately, Cloud ran forward again. He couldn't let Malfoy smash the materia. It was too rare and precious.

Harry went into a dive... Both Harry and the materia were pelting towards him... Cloud gasped and ducked.

Then he heard the whole class cheer. Harry had caught the materia. He handed it back to the stunned Cloud.

"Thanks," Cloud muttered. "You really shouldn't have..."

"No problem," said Harry.

"Potter!"

The class jumped. Professor McGonagall was hurrying towards them, her face a mask of rage.

**xxxxx**

Cloud waited anxiously for Harry to arrive. He could feel guilt churning at his insides. Professor McGonagall had arrived on the scene right after Harry caught the materia. She had taken Harry with her, looking very serious. The Slytherins had all been laughing gleefully, saying that he would be expelled. And it's all my fault, thought Cloud. If I hadn't dropped the materia... if I'd got it back from Malfoy before he took off...

Just then, he saw Harry enter the Great Hall. He dropped his fork with a clatter. Please don't let him be expelled because of me, please don't let him be expelled because of me...

"Harry!" he called.

The black-haired boy heard him and hurried over.

"Have you – are you...?"

Harry grinned. "No, don't worry, I'm not!"

"Oh, that's great," said Cloud, relieved.

"In fact... you mustn't tell anybody else this..."

Cid and Barret immediately leaned forward to listen.

"I'm going to be playing Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team!" said Harry.

"_What_?" said Cid. "But you're a first-year! You must be the youngest house-player in about-"

"-a century," Harry finished for him.

"Shit," said Cid.

"That's amazing!" said Cloud.

"Well done, bro," said Barret.

Harry smiled.

**xxxxx**

Later that evening, Cloud was in the library attempting to do his Potions homework. Potions had quickly become his least favourite subject; it was difficult, fiddly, and to make matters worse, the Potions master Professor Snape was perhaps the most horrible man he had ever met.

He sighed and scrawled out another line. He wondered briefly how Yuffie was doing. If Malfoy hadn't taken his Restore materia, he could have cured her. But Madam Pomfrey, the matron, would be much better at healing injuries than him, he reassured himself.

"Hey, Cloud."

Startled, he looked up. Tifa was sitting opposite him. He hadn't even noticed her sliding into the seat.

"Working hard?" she asked, a smile flitting across her face. "It's getting late, you know."

"I'm having trouble with this," he admitted.

"Can I see?"

"Sure."

She scanned the piece of parchment, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "Oh, I've already done this. I know the book you need – let me get it for you." She stood up and walked along the book-shelves. Cloud watched her long dark hair, which glistened in the dim light. Suddenly he felt happier. Tifa would be his friend. She had come over, just to talk to him.

Tifa returned clutching an old, heavy book. She thumbed through its pages until she found the right chapter.

"There, see."

"Thanks, Tifa." Cloud copied down the passage from the book as quickly as he could. He really ought to make conversation now. He cleared his throat. "So, um, how are you doing so far?"

"I'm fine," said Tifa brightly. "It's wonderful, I've made lots of new friends here..."

"What are you doing in the library at this time?" screeched an old, cracked voice.

"Oh no," murmured Tifa. She looked up at the librarian, Madam Pince, who was bearing down upon them. "I'm sorry," she began.

"Get out! You should be back in your common rooms!"

"We're going now," said Cloud hastily. He snapped the book shut, almost spilling ink all over it, and shoved his work into his bag.

"I'll put the book back," Tifa offered.

Madam Pince watched them with her arms folded, now and then muttering to herself about the cheek of first-years.

"Let's go," said Cloud when she came back, and the two of them hurried out of the library as fast as they could.

"Phew!" said Tifa. "That old wench!"

The corridors were almost empty. "I wonder what time it is," said Cloud.

Tifa looked at her watch. "It's half past ten. No wonder she was so mad. We're definitely not allowed to be out in the corridors now."

They looked around nervously.

"I'll walk you to your common room," Cloud offered.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. We can walk part of the way together."

They started walking, a little awkwardly. A suit of armour clanged just as Cloud passed it, making both of them jump.

"The castle's pretty spooky at night, isn't it?" said Tifa.

"Yeah. Are you scared?"

"No." Tifa smiled shyly. "I'm with you, Cloud."

At the end of the corridor, there were three sets of staircases leading to different floors. Cloud made to turn left, but Tifa stopped.

"My common room's that way," she said, pointing to the right.

"Oh," said Cloud. "Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?"

"I'll be fine. Well, see you around, Cloud." She started walking away, but her head was tilted back, smiling at him.

He watched her until she disappeared out of sight on the moving staircase. An old man in a portrait in front of him sniffed.

"Shouldn't you be in bed now, young man?"

"I'm going, I'm going!" He hurried off before any of the other portraits could accost him. He was afraid he might get lost, as the castle looked unfamiliar in the dark, but a few minutes later he found himself at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. It was guarded by a portrait of a fat woman wearing a pink dress.

"Password?" said the Fat Lady.

"Oh... er..." Crap! He couldn't remember the password! Cloud racked his spiky little head, but his mind had gone blank.

"No password, no entrance," the Fat Lady added. She gave him a stern look.

Cloud felt panicky. He couldn't concentrate. What was the password?

"I don't... know," he said. "Please, let me in. You can't just let me stay out here."

"Rules are rules," said the Fat Lady primly. "You'll just have to wait for someone else to come, won't you?"

He groaned and sank to the floor. Waiting was all he could do now. He leaned his head against the wall next to the portrait, and waited.

**(Next chapter... Fluffy makes an appearance. And Cloud receives an interesting offer...)**


	3. Of Monsters and Meetings

**(This is more of a transition chapter, which is why it's a bit short. I could have extended the Fluffy scene, but it would drag on a bit, and I want this fic to focus on Cloud's story.**

**Disclaimer: The characters still aren't mine.)**

Something nudged Cloud and he stirred. He opened his eyes to find three faces staring at him. One was the clever, bushy-haired girl called Hermione. The other two were Harry and Ron.

"Cloud!" said Harry. "What are you doing out here?"

"Couldn't remember the password," he mumbled.

"The password's 'Pig snout', but it's no use now, the Fat Lady's vanished."

Cloud sat up with a groan. "Oh no... so we're all locked out?"

"_I_ didn't ask to be here," Hermione sniffed.

"What are you all doing here?"

"We're going to the trophy room," whispered Harry. "Malfoy challenged me to a duel at midnight."

Cloud's eyes widened. "You're serious?"

"Yeah – Cloud, you just stay here. Hermione, you can wait with him."

Cloud stood up. "No, I'm coming with you."

"I'm coming too, to stop you all getting into trouble!" said Hermione.

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

"Fine then," said Harry. "But you've got to be quiet, okay?"

The four of them started towards the trophy room. Cloud had thought the castle seemed dark and spooky earlier, but as the time crept on towards midnight, he had to admit that this excursion was much worse.

"If either of you gets us caught," Ron growled, "I won't rest until I've learnt that Curse of the Bogies that Quirrell was telling us about."

Professor Quirrell was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Cloud wished he knew more defensive spells now he was going to a real wizards' duel. What if Malfoy had tricked Harry and Ron and was bringing some of his fellow Slytherins to ambush them?

They climbed a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed into the trophy room. It was dark and silent.

"No-one's here," said Cloud uncertainly.

"I suppose they haven't arrived yet," said Harry.

For a couple of minutes they waited, skulking in the darkness.

"Do you reckon he's not coming?" said Ron nervously.

Then they all froze. They had just heard a voice that filled all of them with dread. Filch, the caretaker. He was talking to his cat, Mrs Norris.

"Let's go," Harry mouthed, and the four of them crept out of the door, away from the direction of Filch's voice. Cloud's heart was pounding. He sped up, Ron next to him, but then his foot caught something and he felt himself fall forward. He and Ron crashed into a suit of armour. The clang it made was horribly loud. Panting, Cloud picked himself up. Oh no, he thought, I've blown it now.

"Run!" Harry yelled. The four of them pelted down the corridor as fast as they could. Cloud thought he could hear Filch wheezing somewhere behind them. They would be caught... Harry stopped and ripped aside a tapestry, revealing a secret passage. He ducked into it.

"Come on, Hermione!" said Cloud, pushing the frightened girl into the passage. The sound of their panting filled the air. They emerged into another corridor. There they stopped, gasping for breath. Hermione glared round at them all.

"Malfoy must have tricked you into going to the trophy room," she said. "He was never going to turn up. He must have told Filch you'd be there. You've been set up."

Harry and Ron glared back at her, but neither admitted that she was right.

"Can we just go back then?" said Cloud.

"Malfoy'll pay for this," said Ron angrily.

"Come on, Cloud's right," sighed Harry. "We'd better go."

They started walking at a slower pace. Then a cat emerged from a nearby classroom. Mrs Norris stared at them with her lamp-like eyes.

"Have you found them, my sweet?" Filch's unmistakable hunting call reached their ears.

"Oh, crap," said Cloud. They ran for their lives.

As they reached the end of the corridor, they looked around frantically for a way out. There was one door. Ron tried to open it but it wouldn't budge.

"It's locked!"

"Oh, get out of the way!" snapped Hermione. She tapped her wand at the place where the door's lock would be. "_Alohomora_!" The door clicked open.

They rushed in and Cloud shut the door behind them. He gave a sigh of relief. They had escaped. The others had gone oddly silent. He turned around and stared at the murky darkness of the corridor.

Three monstrous dog-heads stared back at them. For a moment, Cloud stood frozen in shock. The dog's three red tongues lolled, showing huge white fangs, and it let out a low, rumbling growl. Its breath stank. In one split second, Cloud realised where they must be: the forbidden corridor on the third floor. He vaguely remembered Dumbledore telling them about it.

As one, the four students screamed and ran back out of the door. Cloud didn't care that Filch might be waiting out there for them; he just wanted to get away as fast as possible. They ran, all the way up to the seventh floor where the Fat Lady's portrait was waiting for them.

"Where on earth have you been?" she asked in surprise.

"Pig snout," panted Harry, and the portrait opened to reveal the Gryffindor common room. Cloud climbed inside, feeling only relief after the terror of the ordeal he'd just been through.

"What kind of idiot would keep a gigantic killer dog in the school?" Ron managed to look indignant.

"Don't be silly," said Hermione. "Didn't you see what the dog was standing on?"

"I was too busy looking at its teeth!"

Cloud agreed whole-heartedly.

"It was standing on a trap door. It's obviously guarding something."

She had time to figure all that out while we were running away? Cloud wondered.

"Well, I hope you're all pleased with yourselves," Hermione continued. "We could all have been killed – or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

Cloud gaped at her. He wasn't the only one; both Harry and Ron were staring after her with their mouths open.

"You'd think we'd forced her to come with us," Ron muttered. The three of them trailed up to their dormitory. Cloud, feeling weary, collapsed into bed and slept.

**xxxxx**

As Hallowe'en approached, Cloud hadn't mentioned the incident with the three-headed dog to anybody. He considered telling Tifa but she would probably laugh at how weak he had been. He had been scared out of his wits. No, he just wanted to forget about it.

He walked through the courtyard, bowing his head against the drizzle.

"Cloud! Hey, Cloud!"

Tifa was calling him. He smiled as he saw her waving at him. She was standing under the shelter of a roof supported by grey stone columns. One of her Ravenclaw friends was with her. Hurrying over, he realised with a start that the girl next to her was the one he had noticed at the start-of-term feast. Her hair was tied back with a pink ribbon.

"Hi, Tifa," he said. He wondered why she had called him over. She didn't usually talk to him while she was with her friends. In fact, he had hardly spoken to her in the past few weeks.

"Cloud, this is my friend, Aerith."

Aerith smiled at him. "Tifa's told me a lot about you."

"Really?"

Her smile turned into an impish grin. "About how cute you are, Cloud, with your hair like a chocobo."

Cloud's mouth fell open. He felt himself turning red, and turned to Tifa for reassurance. But to his surprise, she was blushing too.

"I didn't say that!"

Aerith giggled. "Don't you like him, Tifa?"

"No, it's not like that, we're just friends." Tifa let her hair fall in front of her face to hide her embarrassment.

Aerith patted Cloud's arm in sympathy. "Aw, poor Cloud. Hey, are you going to the Hallowe'en feast?"

"Uh, y-yeah," he stammered.

"Tifa wanted to ask you –" Aerith flinched as Tifa stepped on her foot – "I mean, we wanted to ask you if you wanted to come to a little private party in our common room."

Cloud blinked. "You're inviting me... to a party?"

"Yeah, it'll just be a little get-together. A sponsor of ours knows how to get into the kitchens and he said he'd get some food and drink for us. Come on, it'll be fun!"

"But I'm a Gryffindor," said Cloud. "I'm not allowed in your common room."

Aerith winked at him. "Nobody'll know, they'll all be at the feast! We've invited people from all the houses."

"That's right," said Tifa, who had recovered enough from her embarrassment to look Cloud in the face. "We think it's important to... what was that phrase again?"

"Foster community spirit between the houses," Aerith chanted. "You know, with the Quidditch season coming up, there's going to be so much rivalry. We think there should be more friendships between the houses."

"Even the Slytherins?" said Cloud dubiously.

"Of course the Slytherins! I know Gryffindor and Slytherin don't get along very well, but this is your chance to meet some of them and realise they're not all bad." Aerith's face shone. He couldn't help feeling affected by her genuine enthusiasm.

"Well, I suppose..."

"That's decided then," said Aerith.

"Meet me in the Entrance Hall just before the feast starts," Tifa told him. "I'm... looking forward to seeing you there."

"See you!" said Aerith. She flashed him a bright smile and the two girls strolled off together.

**(Next chapter... it's party time! And the plot begins to thicken...)**


	4. Of Parties and Partings

**(As promised, it's party time. There's lots of character interaction in this chapter, and we see Vincent for the first time. Vincent was probably the most difficult character for me to write. I mean, have you ever tried to imagine what a twelve-year old Vincent would be like? **

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters and the wonderful world of Hogwarts belongs to JK Rowling. Final Fantasy characters belong to Square-Enix.)**

On the eve of Hallowe'en, Cloud waited nervously in the Entrance Hall. He watched the other students pass by him, chatting about the feast. For a moment, he wished he was with them. He remembered the last time he had broken rules, and what a disaster that night had been. Now he was going to do it again. No, Cloud told himself firmly, it's just a harmless little party... what could possibly go wrong?

He saw Tifa descending the marble staircase. She pushed through a crowd of Gryffindor fourth-years and walked up to him.

"Hi, Cloud. I'm glad you're coming."

"Yeah..."

"Come on, then, let's go before anyone asks us why we aren't going to the feast." Her face was flushed with excitement. She tugged at his hand. He was suddenly acutely aware of the touch of her palm on his skin, but before he could process the sensation, she had let go. He followed her up the marble staircase. He realised that he didn't even know where the Ravenclaw common room was.

"It's a tower on the west side of the castle," Tifa answered his question.

"So who else is going to be at this party? Anyone I know?"

"Well, you know Aerith, obviously, and another Ravenclaw in our year – do you know Vincent Valentine?" As Cloud shook his head, she went on. "There's Cho Chang and a couple of her friends from the second year. Then there's Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff, and a second-year Hufflepuff boy who knows Aerith. We've invited Yuffie Kisaragi, Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy from Slytherin..." Tifa stopped at the look on Cloud's face. "Is something wrong, Cloud?"

Cloud grimaced. "I don't get on well with Malfoy." The pale-faced Slytherin boy never failed to insult his intelligence at every opportunity; not to mention he had recently picked up the Chocobo-head nickname. Now all the Slytherins called him that.

"I'm sorry, Cloud." Tifa looked concerned as they turned a corner and climbed another staircase. "It was Aerith who invited the Slytherins... well, it's not her fault either, we didn't know... I'm sure you can just avoid him."

Cloud avoided looking at her. He didn't like the idea of Malfoy picking on him in front of Tifa and Aerith.

"So, have you invited any other Gryffindors?" he asked in a flat voice.

"Yeah, of course. There's Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell – they're on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, we had a hard time persuading them to come when they heard about the Slytherins... oh, and of course, our special sponsors."

"Special sponsors? Who are they?"

Tifa grinned. "It's a secret. They helped us organise all this. Although they didn't want to invite the Slytherins either... But Aerith can be very convincing."

They turned left into a short corridor filled with tapestries. At the end, a huge bronze statue of an eagle with its wings outspread stared at them with diamond eyes. Aerith was there, along with the three Hufflepuffs. She waved at Tifa.

"Now, you all move away, and don't try to hear the password!" Aerith instructed. Cloud and the three Hufflepuffs backed off obediently. Tifa stretched up to the bronze eagle's head and whispered something. The eagle's eyes appeared to contract slightly, and then the whole statue moved away, revealing a dark opening.

"Come on, Cloud!" said Aerith. Reluctantly, he climbed into the hole, and found himself inside the Ravenclaw common room. His first thought was that it was surprisingly similar to the Gryffindor common room: round, with stone walls draped with curtains, and a crackling fire. But the velvet curtains were a deep, dark blue, and the alcoves next to the fireplace held shelves filled with a variety of books. There were various armchairs and tables scattered around, and two long window seats.

Three tables had been pushed together, and they were piled with food. In the middle sat a huge cake, shaped like a grinning pumpkin. Several students stood around the table, sipping goblets of pumpkin juice and picking out their favourite foods.

"Shall I get you a drink, Cloud?" Tifa asked him, while Aerith immediately went off to introduce the Hufflepuffs to everyone.

"No – let me get the drinks."

"Thanks." He watched her sit in an armchair by the fire next to a boy whose face was in shadow. He found a jug of pumpkin juice and poured two drinks. He set them down on the table for a moment, wondering whether to grab some food as well, when someone bumped into him.

"Oh – sorry, didn't see you there, Chocobo-head." Draco Malfoy sneered at him. "Hope I didn't knock anything over."

"I bet you meant to," Cloud growled.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Now why would I do that? Tell me, Strife, how did you stumble across this party? Surely no-one would invite _you_."

"Actually, I was invited," Cloud replied stiffly.

Aerith walked over then, clutching the arm of another girl. Cloud recognised her: it was Yuffie, the girl who had fallen off her broomstick in her first flying lesson.

"Draco!" Aerith chirped. "I'm glad you could come. Would you like to join us in a game of Exploding Snap?"

Malfoy shrugged. "All right, then."

"How about you, Cloud?" Aerith smiled at him.

"No thanks, I said I'd get drinks for Tifa."

"Could you get me a drink too?" Yuffie asked suddenly. She extricated herself from Aerith's arm.

Aerith shrugged and smiled at them. "Well, have fun." She and Malfoy walked off.

Cloud gave Yuffie the drink he had poured for himself, and poured himself another one.

"So," said Yuffie, as she sipped her drink, "you're Cloud."

"That's right," said Cloud shortly. He turned away from her and walked over to the waiting Tifa. To Cloud's annoyance, Yuffie followed.

"Thanks, Cloud," said Tifa. "Hi, Yuffie! Looking forward to the Quidditch season?"

"No way! Even watching people flying makes me feel ill."

Tifa smiled sympathetically.

Yuffie turned to Cloud and there was a sly glint in her dark eyes. "So... Cloud. I hear you own a materia?"

Cloud frowned. So that's what she's after. "Maybe I do," he said.

"Got it on you?"

"No," he said, noticing that Yuffie's eyes were darting to the pockets of his robes.

"Hmm."

"Aerith has a materia too," said Tifa.

"Really? Is it a good one? What does it do?"

Tifa shrugged. "She told me it doesn't do anything. It used to belong to her mother."

"What kind of materia is it?"

"I don't know. It's white."

The other boy, who had been sitting in the shadows, not speaking, leaned forward. "The White Materia," he said. "I've heard of it. It may be the rarest materia in the world."

"Excuse me," said Yuffie, and she walked back to the buffet table. Cloud watched her, his eyes narrowed, and saw her walk over to the window seat where Aerith was sitting with Malfoy, Zabini and another Ravenclaw girl.

"Cloud, this is Vincent."

Cloud switched his attention back to Tifa. "Huh?"

"This is Vincent. Vincent Valentine. He's a Ravenclaw too."

Vincent held out his hand solemnly. Cloud shook it.

"Nice to meet you," said Vincent. "About that materia..." – he turned back to Tifa – "... are you sure it's white? I can't believe some kid is carrying the White Materia."

Tifa's forehead creased. "I think it is. Why don't you ask her?"

"Maybe I will."

"What's the big deal about this White Materia anyway?" asked Cloud. He was feeling confused. First he had thought that Yuffie was out to steal his Restore materia, but as soon as this other materia was mentioned, she'd lost interest. It's not fair, he thought. I can't even have the best materia. Someone else always has something rarer and better.

"My grandfather told me a story about it when I was little. But it's probably nothing." Vincent sat back so his face was in shadow again. "It's probably not even true."

"Aw, come on, you've got to tell us now!" said Tifa.

Vincent didn't say anything. Cloud waited for a couple of seconds, then leaned forward, ready to demand that he told the story.

"Oh, wait a minute," said Tifa. She stood up. "Aerith, come here!"

Aerith joined Tifa and the two girls both looked over to the common room entrance. Cloud turned around too, wondering what they were staring at.

"Everybody, meet our sponsors," said Aerith loudly, so that everyone in the room turned their attention to her. "Fred and George Weasley."

Two identical red-haired boys grinned at them.

"It's George and Fred!" said one twin.

"Don't be so ungracious, George," said the other. "Thanks, Aerith. Yep, it's Fred and George at your service, and we're the ones you can thank for all the grub."

"We're very grateful," said Aerith. "Let's show them our appreciation for making this a great party."

She started to clap, and gradually everyone at the party joined in the applause. A few even cheered. Fred and George grinned and bowed immodestly. Cloud stared at them, trying to tell them apart, but even the freckles covering their faces looked identical.

The twins took Aerith by each arm and marched her off to the rest of her friends. Cloud wondered if Tifa would join them, but she returned to the seat by the fire instead.

"So they're your secret sponsors?" Cloud asked.

"That's right," Tifa replied. "You wouldn't believe how much they know about the castle's secret passages. I wish they'd tell me how they do it; they're only a couple of years older than us."

"Yeah, I know."

"Anyway..." Tifa poked Vincent, who had retreated back into the shadow of his armchair. "I haven't forgotten that story you were going to tell us."

"I wasn't going to tell it."

"Come on, please?"

Vincent sighed. "Fine. But it's just a story, remember. Well, my grandfather said that there are two kinds of ultimate materia. The White Materia and the Black Materia. And that the Black Materia contains powerful magic. It allows the wizard who uses it to cast a spell that could destroy the entire planet."

Tifa gasped.

Cloud frowned. "Wait... I've never heard of this. Are you sure it's true? What if You Know Who got hold of it?"

"Don't say that, Cloud! You Know Who's dead anyway," said Tifa.

"Who knows?" said Vincent. "But the White Materia is supposed to be the only thing that can stop the Black Materia. That's what my grandfather told me."

"That's a cool story," said Tifa. "I hope it's not true, though."

"But what exactly does the White Materia do?" asked Cloud.

Vincent shrugged. "All my grandfather said was that it's supposed to purge the planet of evil."

"Hey! Everybody, get out quick!" The panicked high-pitched voice alerted everybody in the room. Cloud, Tifa and Vincent stood up to see who was talking. It was a Ravenclaw girl with long black hair and slanted eyes. She had just entered the common room; the entrance was still open behind her.

"What is it, Cho?" Aerith called, pushing past the others.

"Fred and George just warned me – they were keeping a lookout – the whole school's in a panic... the teachers are sending everybody back to their common rooms!"

"Oh no – why?"

Cloud did a double take as the twins entered the common room behind Cho. They must have left earlier, while Vincent was telling his story. They looked out of breath.

"There's a troll loose in the school!" said one.

"You'd better go now, back to your common rooms, before the other Ravenclaws get back!"

Fred and George left immediately. Panic ensued. The three Slytherins pelted out of the common room first, and the Hufflepuffs followed them, while Aerith and Cho started clearing up the food as fast as they could.

"You'd better go, Cloud!" said Tifa. "We'll be in so much trouble if anyone finds out about this!"

"Go!" said Vincent.

Cloud nodded. He ran out of the common room, and dashed down the corridor. A troll in the school! He could hardly believe it. As he ran for the seventh floor, he came across a group of Gryffindors who were being herded along by a bossy red-haired prefect. Feeling relieved, he joined them unnoticed.

He walked up to his dormitory to find Cid and Barret already there.

"Yo, have you seen Harry and Ron?" asked Barret.

Cloud shook his head.

"Why weren't you at the feast?" asked Cid. "Where've you bin?"

"Oh, I... had to do some work in the library," Cloud invented. "I only just heard about the troll."

Cid grunted.

Cloud drew the hangings around his four poster bed so he wouldn't have to talk to them. As he lay there, he felt worry gnaw at his insides. Where were Harry and Ron? Had the troll got them? He hoped that the other students who had been at the party had got back to their common rooms safely too. Cloud felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do about any of this. Still, at least he knew Aerith and Tifa were safe...

**(Of course, we all know who meets the troll... Next chapter, Cloud goes home for Christmas.)**


	5. Of Snowflakes and Crackers

**(Christmas has arrived. We get to see Cloud's mother for the first time - I had a great time writing her because I could develop the character myself. The whole chapter was fun to write, in fact. I hope you enjoy. As ever, reviews are much appreciated.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Final Fantasy characters belong to Square-Enix. Harry Potter characters and the setting of Hogwarts belong to JK Rowling.)**

"Man, I still can't believe you took on a troll," said Cid. "You must be completely nuts."

Harry grinned.

"Good luck in the match, Harry!" said Cloud. It was November now, and Gryffindor's first match of the season was upon them. Cloud couldn't wait to see Harry fly. Since that Hallowe'en night, when Harry had fought the troll and won _and_ saved Hermione's life, Harry had gone up a lot in Cloud's opinion. He wished he could be heroic too.

He gulped down his breakfast and walked with Cid, Barret, Ron and Hermione to the Quidditch pitch. They sat in the top row. The cold wind whipped into Cloud's face, but he didn't mind. He was full of excitement to see the Quidditch match. Since the troll incident, he had managed not to run into any more trouble, and luckily their forbidden party had gone unnoticed too. The teachers were probably more concerned with working out how a mountain troll had gotten into the school.

He watched a group of small figures walk onto the Quidditch pitch, wearing green and red robes. The referee, Madam Hooch, blew her whistle and fifteen figures rose into the air. Cloud and the rest of the Gryffindors cheered.

The Quidditch players zoomed around so fast that Cloud found it difficult to follow them. He tried to listen to the commentary, but could catch only brief fragments; the rest was lost amidst the roaring of the crowd.

"It's Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there... hit in the back of the head by a Bludger..."

Cloud winced; that looked painful. He searched the sky for Harry, and found him circling the pitch. Harry was a Seeker, and his job was to find the tiny Golden Snitch which would end the game. Suddenly Harry went into a dive... Cloud's heart leapt with excitement – Harry must have seen the Snitch – but then a green-robed player slammed into him.

"Foul!" screamed the Gryffindors.

"They should send him off!" Barret yelled. "Red card!"

"You can't send off Quidditch players," Ron told him, "and what's a red card?"

Cloud didn't know what a red card was either, but he didn't care right now. As he squinted at Harry's figure, he realised that something was going wrong. Harry's broomstick was bucking and jerking about; it was all he could do to stay on it. Cloud wondered if something had gone wrong with the broomstick – maybe from the collision. Then he gasped as Harry almost fell off the broomstick altogether – now he was hanging on by one hand.

"Look!" said Hermione. "There, Snape! He's jinxing the broom!"

Cloud and Ron looked over to the opposite side of the stands. Snape, the hook-nosed Potions master, was staring directly at Harry and muttering something very fast.

Hermione left her seat and rushed off to stop Snape. Cloud watched her, praying that she would get there in time. She dashed past Professor Quirrell, knocking him into the row in front. Then she pointed her wand at Snape, and the end of his robes caught fire. Cloud glanced back at Harry. He was struggling to get back on his broom.

After a few more seconds, Snape noticed the flames eating their way up his robes. His attention was diverted.

The Gryffindor Seeker went into a dive. Cloud's eyes followed the blurred figure, and he almost looked away when Harry fell off his broom, but he only dropped a few feet onto the Quidditch pitch. Harry coughed, and Cloud caught a glimpse of a small, golden ball. He didn't understand what had just happened until he heard the commentator's shout.

"Gryffindor win by one hundred and seventy points to sixty!"

Cloud cheered until his voice went hoarse.

**xxxxx**

He packed his trunk. He hadn't forgotten anything, had he? Cloud checked his pocket, and felt the cold hardness of the materia there. He carried it with him all the time now. Who knew when it might come in useful?

He glanced outside the window. Snow fell, smearing its white wetness against the glass. Christmas was approaching, and Cloud would be returning to Nibelheim. Tifa was going back too. He wondered if she would just hang around with her old friends again and ignore him.

He made his way down to the Entrance Hall, carrying his trunk. The Hall was full of students milling about, waiting for the time to leave. He ducked into the antechamber where the first-years had waited before the Sorting, hoping it would be deserted.

It was, almost. One girl stood there, gazing at the snowflakes outside the window with a wistful look on her face.

"Aerith?" said Cloud uncertainly. It felt as though he'd intruded on a private moment somehow.

She turned. "Cloud! Oh, I'm happy to see you now, before we go! I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas."

"Thanks," said Cloud.

Aerith stepped up to him, that playful look in her face again. "Wait, I haven't said it yet. Merry Christmas, Cloud."

"Merry Christmas to you too," he answered, not knowing what else to say.

"I think winter's my favourite time of year," said Aerith. She looked out of the window again. "It reminds me of when I was little... when I lived with my mother and father."

"Don't you live with them anymore?"

"No, they died," said Aerith simply.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It was a long time ago. And I know I'll talk to them again."

"You will?"

"Of course, Cloud. Sometimes... I think I hear her voice..."

Cloud didn't say anything. He had never met anyone like Aerith. But she didn't seem to mind his silence.

"Just then, I think I heard her." Aerith shook her head. "I... can't tell for sure. Maybe it's something else."

"What did she say?"

Aerith shook her head in frustration. "I don't know. It's too busy and noisy here. One day I'll find a quiet place, and then I'll be able to hear."

Cloud looked at his feet. "I should probably go now."

"Don't," said Aerith. "I don't mind you being here." She tilted her head on one side. "Or is it me who's bothering you?"

He shook his head.

"Guess I freaked you out with all that talking to dead people stuff, huh? But I'm a witch, Cloud. There must be some way of contacting the dead by magic, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "I've never heard of one. But then we've only been learning magic for a few months."

"The more I learn, the closer I get. One day I'll find out." Aerith nodded. Cloud wasn't sure exactly what she meant, but he felt it would be stupid to ask. "Hey, we'd better go," she said. "You don't want to stay at Hogwarts all Christmas, do you?"

"No... but if your parents are dead, who are you living with now?"

"My stepmother, of course," said Aerith promptly. "Now let's go."

**xxxxx**

"I've got great news for you, Cloud."

"What is it, Mum?"

Cloud's mother bustled about the kitchen, while he watched her from the table. She was a blonde-haired, vibrant woman, and she was more cheerful now than he had seen in years.

"I've invited Tifa's family over for Christmas dinner!"

A host of conflicting emotions immediately invaded Cloud's brain. He would love to see Tifa, to talk to her again, but he thought how awkward it would be making conversation over the dinner table. Aerith's face flashed into his mind and he thought that he wouldn't be uncomfortable with her, and then he felt bad for thinking that. It wasn't Tifa's fault. But Tifa's father had held a grudge against Cloud ever since they had fallen off the cliff at Mount Nibel. Cloud had gotten away with skinned knees while Tifa ended up in a coma. Tifa's father blamed him for that. And Cloud's mother had always been somewhat isolated in the village community, especially after his father had died. He supposed that was what came with being a witch; you couldn't afford to get too close to Muggles or they might notice careless signs of magic. Now that Tifa was a witch, Cloud's mother hoped that the two families would become friends.

He couldn't ruin this for her.

"That's great," he said.

"I'm going to make the biggest Christmas turkey ever! You'll love it."

"Hey, there'll only be four of us."

She laughed. "It'll be like having a proper family dinner. How are you doing at school, Cloud? Did you get that materia I sent you?"

He nodded.

"You haven't lost it, have you?"

"No, it's right here." He pulled it out of his pocket.

"Good. Oh, you know, I was ever so pleased when I heard you became a Gryffindor. Your father was a Gryffindor."

"Really?" It wasn't necessary for him to contribute much to the conversation. His mother just kept on talking regardless.

"Yes, and I heard that Harry Potter is in Gryffindor too! I thought, goodness me, my son is sharing a room with Harry Potter. Are you good friends?"

"Yeah."

"You should invite him over some time; I'd love to meet him." She moved over to his trunk and inspected its contents. "Oh my, your clothes are filthy! What have you been doing? Go and get changed right now, Cloud, I'll need to wash all these..."

Cloud's mother woke him up on Christmas morning. He groaned as she messed up his spiky hair, and pulled the covers back over himself.

"Come on, Cloud, get up. It's Christmas."

"I know it is," Cloud mumbled. He rolled out of bed.

"The sooner you get ready, the quicker you'll get your presents." She left his bedroom.

Sighing, Cloud washed and dressed. He was examining his reflection in the mirror when he remembered that Tifa was coming over today. And his hair was a mess! Cloud grabbed his hair gel from the top drawer and attempted to get his spikes right. His blond hair was being unusually obstinate.

After an hour, his mother shouted him. "I thought I told you to be quick, Cloud!"

"I'm coming!" He smoothed the back of his head one final time, washed his hands, and rushed into the kitchen. His presents were waiting for him on the dining table.

"Can I open them now?"

"Go ahead."

His eyes fell first on a long thin package. It reminded him of the package a school owl had brought for Harry one morning. That had contained Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand. Grinning in excitement, he ripped away the paper to reveal a shiny new broomstick.

"Wow, thanks Mum!" He examined the handle. The words 'Comet Three Ninety' shone in silver lettering.

"It's the latest Comet," his mother told him, her lips curving upwards. "I thought you'd like it. I decided that you're old enough to have a broom now."

Cloud placed the broomstick carefully on the table and hugged his mother. It must have cost her a fortune, he thought. A slight anxiety niggled him. It had cost her enough earlier in the year to buy all his robes and school books... He hoped she hadn't sacrificed anything to buy him a broomstick, even though he'd been nagging her for years.

"There're two more presents for you," she said. "Though you've already opened the best!"

He opened a smaller present. It contained a huge bar of Honeydukes chocolate. The final present was a large bottle of Sleakeazy's Hair Potion.

"Do you like your presents?"

"They're great, Mum. Thanks." He hugged her again. "Oh... and merry Christmas."

She smiled, and hugged him closer. "Merry Christmas, Cloud. I've missed you."

**xxxxx**

A knock at the door made Cloud look up from the plates he was carefully setting on the dining table.

"Oh, they're here already!" Cloud's mother pointed her wand at the roast turkey resting on a sideboard, causing a knife to start carving it. Then she answered the door.

"Welcome, welcome! Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas, Mrs Strife," Cloud heard Tifa reply. He glanced up and smiled at her. Tifa returned the smile, but then her father put his hand on her shoulder and gave him what was unmistakably a glare. Cloud felt his smile evaporate.

"The food smells delicious," Tifa's father said.

"It's almost ready. Here, take off your coats and I'll hang them up... Please sit down; I'll be serving in a minute."

Cloud set down the last fork. The house looked suitably festive. Fairy lights shone at all the windows (fake ones, like Muggles used). A golden Christmas tree sparkled in the corner and the table was set with red napkins and wizard crackers.

He pulled out a chair for Tifa and she sat down.

"Here you are, Mr Lockhart." He pulled out a chair for Tifa's father too, and the older man took it without looking at him. Cloud sat opposite Tifa, leaving the head of the table for his mother.

His mother filled the table with dishes of sprouts, potatoes, other vegetables, apple sauce and a gravy boat. The smell that wafted from them made Cloud's mouth water. The plate of sliced turkey took the focal position at the centre of the table. Then she sat down and fanned herself with a napkin.

"Phew! Well, help yourself."

Cloud filled his plate enthusiastically. The food at Hogwarts was always excellent, but nothing could beat his mother's cooking.

"This turkey is perfect," said Tifa's father. His mother beamed.

After a few more compliments on her food, the conversation turned to Tifa.

"You must be so proud knowing your daughter is a witch," said Cloud's mother. Cloud looked down, embarrassed. His mother had a way of sometimes coming out with things which were so direct, and yet so inappropriate. He wasn't at all sure that Tifa's father would be happy she was a witch.

The man chewed his food for a few seconds before replying. "Well," he said, in a measured voice, "it was a shock at first, I must admit. I wasn't at all keen on letting my girl go to a boarding school for witches and wizards. Witchcraft, you know. It's the devil's business."

"Dad!" said Tifa. "I've told you, that's not what it's like at all."

"I think that a Muggle like yourself will find magic very useful," Cloud's mother went on. "When Tifa comes of age, she'll be able to do all sorts of useful spells. It's certainly helped me in the kitchen!" She laughed.

"You made all this food by magic?"

"With the help of magic."

Tifa's father grunted, but he suddenly didn't look as happy about the meal. He toyed with a bit of broccoli on his plate.

"Can we pull the crackers?" asked Tifa.

Cloud was grateful that she had filled the awkward silence. "Yes, let's," he agreed.

"Go on then," his mother said. "You kids go first."

Tifa picked up her cracker and held it out to Cloud. He pulled it...

BANG! The cracker let off a sound like a gunshot. Purple smoke emitted from it. Tifa screamed, her father leapt so high in the air that he fell backwards off his chair, and Cloud's mother leaned back almost crying with laughter.

"Sorry, I guess you're not used to wizard crackers," said Cloud. He helped Tifa's father get up.

"You – could – have warned me," he panted. The pupils of his eyes were still dilated in fright.

"Are you all right, Dad?" asked Tifa.

"Yeah," he muttered. He sat down again. "I could do with a drink."

"I'll get you some Firewhisky," Cloud's mother offered. "You'll love it, I'm sure."

"Oh, look, Cloud!" Tifa held up the object which had fallen out of the cracker. It was a tiny model reindeer. She put it down on the table and the reindeer shook its antlers and trotted about. "It's moving."

"That's magic for you," said Cloud.

She looked at him, her eyes shining. "You know, I was so shocked when I first saw the portraits at Hogwarts move. I was even more surprised when one of them talked to me."

Her father suddenly choked and spluttered. A smoking glass stood on the table in front of him. "I think I'll just stick to wine," he said when the fit had subsided.

"You sure?" asked Cloud's mother. "All right then." She picked up the glass of Firewhisky and drained it in one gulp. "Ah! Can't let a good drink go to waste."

Tifa put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling. "I like your mum," she mouthed to Cloud. He nodded at her. Then he thought of Tifa's mother. She had died a few years ago. Tifa had been distraught... Looking around, he realised that the four of them made a complete family. Mother, father, son, daughter. Maybe that was why his mother had been so keen for them to come. But this wasn't the reality. They were like the two halves of a heart, except they belonged to different bodies.

**(This chapter was mainly fun and games, but in the next chapter things get darker. Aerith reveals a secret and Cloud is in for some trouble...)**


	6. Of Cetra and Curses

**(Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Final Fantasy belong to JK Rowling and Square-Enix respectively.)**

Cloud returned to Hogwarts after the New Year. He had been looking forward to going back and seeing everyone again, but now he was at school again he remembered why he had wanted to go home so much. Cid and Barret were still calling him Chocobo-head. Snape bullied him in every Potions class and Malfoy seemed to have a personal vendetta against him for no apparent reason. So far he had managed to keep his temper under control.

He wrote the last line of his Transfiguration essay and put his things away with a sigh. At least nobody bothered him in the library. He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way to the exit.

"Hello, Strife," said a drawling voice. "How pleasant to bump into you here."

Cloud stopped short. Him again... Malfoy was blocking his way through the corridor, with his friends Crabbe and Goyle flanking him. The two large boys looked like bodyguards. Malfoy pulled his wand out.

"You know, I've wanted to try out this curse for a while."

He wouldn't, surely...

"You know magic isn't allowed in the corridors," said Cloud.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really? What a shame there aren't any teachers around to enforce the rules."

Cloud's eyes darted around. Malfoy was right; the corridor was empty. Did he have time to counter attack? He pulled his own wand out of his pocket, but before he could cast a spell, Malfoy cried out.

"_Locomotor mortis_!"

Cloud felt his legs lock together and he toppled forward. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle all laughed.

"You really are pathetic, aren't you? I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave. They must have made a mistake picking a wimp like you. I guess you'll just have to hop all the way back to your common room," Malfoy sniggered. The three of them walked away, still laughing.

Cloud felt rage burning inside him. He would have liked to aim a jinx at Malfoy, or better still punch his sneering face, but his wand had fallen out of his hand when he got hit by the curse. He scrabbled around on the ground for it and then, with great difficulty, picked himself up. He leaned against a statue of a gargoyle for a moment while he caught his breath. Gryffindor Tower was on the seventh floor and he was on the fourth. Time to start hopping then...

He had reached the sixth floor when another student came by. It was Yuffie. She stared at him and then burst into a fit of giggles.

"Keep laughing and I'll curse you!" Cloud growled.

"But you look so funny!" said Yuffie. She had tears in her eyes. "Hey!" She backed away as Cloud pointed his wand at her. "Okay, I'll make it up to you; I'll help you up the staircase, is that all right?"

She let him throw an arm over her shoulder and helped him along.

"You're pretty heavy," Yuffie puffed as they negotiated the long staircase.

"I didn't ask to be cursed," Cloud muttered. "It was your friend Draco Malfoy who did it."

"Draco? Ooh, I didn't know he knew so many curses, I'll have to ask him to teach me that one."

"Yuffie!"

"Sorry, that was a bit tactless." They reached the top of the staircase. "Are you okay from here?"

"Yeah," Cloud gasped.

"See you around then." And she bounced back down the staircase, grinning madly.

He stumbled into the Gryffindor common room, gasping for breath. The other students in the room laughed at the sight of him. His face burned.

Hermione jumped up and performed the counter curse. He mumbled thanks to her and moved his legs experimentally. Harry and Ron came forward.

"What happened, Cloud?"

"Malfoy," he said. "I met him outside the library..."

"Report him!" said Hermione.

Cloud shook his head. Inside, he felt that reporting Malfoy would just be another victory for the Slytherin boy. He wanted to beat Malfoy on his own terms. But all he said was that he didn't want more trouble.

"You should stand up to him, Cloud!" Ron urged him. "Don't let him walk all over you."

Oh thanks, mate, thought Cloud. Way to go to make me feel good about myself.

"There's no need to tell me I'm not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, Malfoy's already done that," he managed to choke out. He was embarrassed to find himself close to tears.

Harry rummaged in the pocket of his robes and pulled out a Chocolate Frog. He gave it to Cloud.

"You're worth twelve of Malfoy," Harry said firmly. "The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? And where's Malfoy? In stinking Slytherin."

Cloud unwrapped the Chocolate Frog, feeling slightly better. He picked up the card. "Thanks Harry... I think I'll go to bed. Do you want the card? You collect them, don't you?" He handed the card to Harry and made his way to the dormitory.

Cid was already up there. He had just changed into his pyjamas, which were covered in a pattern of yellow chocobos.

"Hey, loser!" Cid called. "You got hit by the Leg-Locker curse?" He chuckled. "I bet you pissed your pants!"

Cloud ignored him. He sat on his bed and pulled the hangings around him. I'm worth twelve of Malfoy, he told himself. I'm worth twelve of Malfoy. I'm worth twelve of Malfoy.

**xxxxx**

Cloud emerged from a Herbology lesson a few afternoons later to find Tifa waiting outside the greenhouse for him. She looked unusually anxious.

"Cloud, I think you should talk to Aerith," she said.

He blinked. "Talk to Aerith? Why?"

"She's been acting kind of funny lately. Vincent and I have tried to get through to her, but she just keeps brushing us off – you know what she's like."

"But what can I do about it?"

"She trusts you, Cloud." Tifa hesitated, frowning. "I think she might talk to you. Can you come now? We'll meet her at the Owlery."

Intrigued despite himself, Cloud nodded.

The two of them made their way across the frozen grounds to the Owlery. The sun was just starting to set, tingeing the sky a bloody red.

Vincent and Aerith were waiting for them inside the Owlery. Cloud automatically looked around for his barn owl, Ghost. The place was filled with owls; their droppings caked the floor and the sound of their wings rustling made the air whisper. She wasn't there. He supposed she must be out hunting.

"Hi Cloud, Tifa!" said Aerith. She looked as cheerful as ever, Cloud thought. Vincent nodded to him.

A little owl was perched on Aerith's arm. She had just attached a rolled up piece of parchment to its leg. Aerith stroked its feathers. "Go," she whispered. The owl gazed at her with its large yellow eyes, and then flew off.

Aerith put her hands on her hips. "This is a nice party, isn't it?" she said. "What's everyone doing here?"

"You know why we're here," Vincent reminded her. "I think you should tell Cloud."

"Seems like you've all been conspiring against me," she giggled.

"Aerith! Be serious!" said Tifa.

"Oh, fine. I'll tell you. But you're not gonna like it."

"What is it?" Cloud asked when the brown-haired girl showed no sign of continuing.

Aerith gazed out of the entrance, into the sky. A few early stars were visible. "I should tell you about my parents first. Have you ever heard of the Cetra?"

"No."

"It's a long story," said Aerith. "Vincent, you tell it."

Vincent rolled his eyes, but he started explaining anyway. "The Cetra were an ancient people who lived thousands of years ago. You could say that they were the first witches and wizards. They developed a huge store of magical knowledge. Some of that knowledge lives on. Every witch and wizard is a descendent of the Cetra. I guess their magical blood runs in our veins. But there aren't any Cetra left now."

"So?"

"That was great Vincent, you managed to miss out the entire point of the story," said Tifa.

Aerith smiled. "Well, he's not quite right when he says there aren't any Cetra left. There is one."

"Who?"

She laughed. "Me!"

"It explains why you're so good at magic anyway," said Tifa.

Aerith batted her eyes coyly.

"Aerith's mother was a Cetra," said Vincent. "All the pureblood families have some Cetran blood, but she was the last full Cetra. Aerith is actually half-Cetra, so I was right."

Aerith stuck out her tongue at him.

"But... what does this mean?" asked Cloud. He still didn't understand.

"It means I inherited the powers of the Cetra. My mother taught me a little... but I don't understand most of it. All I know is that the Cetra speak to the planet, and unlock the planet. And then we will find the Promised Land."

"The Promised Land? What's that? And what do you mean by speaking to the planet?"

"I don't know. I think that sometimes I can hear the planet."

"Please, tell us. What is the planet saying?" asked Tifa.

Aerith looked at them. "You really want to know? But this is something I should deal with myself. A Cetra thing, you know."

Vincent sighed. "You're only twelve years old, Aerith. If it's really important, you should tell someone."

"You're twelve too! Anyway, I'm not just a child. I can take care of myself."

"We're your friends," Cloud reminded her gently. "We want to help you."

Aerith gazed at him with those wide emerald eyes. "There's something bad happening. I can sense it. The planet is crying out in fear."

"She's been having nightmares," Tifa said in a low voice. "I've seen her. But she wouldn't tell me what they were."

"Something bad?" said Cloud. He felt the beginnings of fear tearing at him. "Like what?" If this had been any other student, he thought, he wouldn't have believed them. But he was certain of Aerith's sincerity. So were Tifa and Vincent, or they wouldn't be here looking so grim and worried.

"Like Lord Voldemort," whispered Aerith. The others winced. "A threat to the planet. He's still alive, somewhere, tied to the earth. Close by..."

"He can't be," said Tifa, voicing what Cloud was thinking. "He was defeated years ago, when we were only a year old."

They were all too young to have experienced firsthand Voldemort's reign of terror. But their parents knew, and they had instilled a fear of the Dark wizard into their children that was very strong. People were still afraid to say his name.

"He's still alive," said Aerith. "I'm sure of it."

"Do you think we should tell someone?" said Cloud.

Vincent laughed harshly. "Do you think anybody would believe us? We don't have any concrete information. Nothing that could help anyone." He looked disappointed. "I thought you might know more than that, Aerith."

"Hey, I'm just a little twelve-year old, like you said. What do I know?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"But you're right. I knew there was no point telling you." Aerith sighed. "Look, just don't worry about it, okay? If he's alive somewhere, he must be weak, without any powers, otherwise he'd be back already. The planet will watch over him."

She stepped out of the Owlery. It had started to rain. The grounds were dark and murky.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm tired," said Aerith. "I'm going to bed. Come on, let's get back to the common room."

The four of them went back to the castle. Cloud had a lot to think about. He wondered if it was true that Aerith could sense Voldemort's presence. But even if she could, what could they do about it? Once more, the answer was nothing. He turned over in his bed and sighed. He was helpless again.

**xxxxx**

It was the day of Gryffindor's next Quidditch match. They would be playing against Hufflepuff, and for reasons that Cloud didn't understand, Snape would be refereeing. Cloud sat in the stands next to Ron and Hermione. They looked grim and they had their wands out, again for reasons he didn't understand.

Everything seemed so ominous. Even Snape looked furious, and as far as Cloud knew, he had volunteered to referee this match.

He noticed Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle take seats behind them and felt his stomach clench. Malfoy poked Ron in the back of his head.

"Hey Weasley, how long do you think Potter's going to stay on his broom this time?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Ron snarled.

"You know how I think they pick players for the Gryffindor Quidditch team?" said Malfoy, his eyes glinting. "They choose people they feel sorry for. Potter's there because he's got no parents, the Weasleys because they've got no money – you should be on the team, Strife, you've got no brains."

Ron's ears turned red. Cloud felt his temper fraying.

"I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy!" he snarled.

Malfoy laughed. "Strife, if brains were gold you'd be poorer than Weasley and that's saying something."

"I'm warning you, Malfoy," Ron growled. A nerve was twitching in his temple. Cloud's fists clenched. He glanced back at the Quidditch pitch; Harry had just gone into a dive.

"You're in luck, Weasley, Potter's obviously spotted some money on the ground!"

Cloud and Ron both snapped. He vaguely sensed Ron beside him let out an incoherent yell and charge at Malfoy. Cloud went for Malfoy too, but Crabbe and Goyle were there, blocking him. He didn't care who it was now; he had to fight someone. He threw himself at the large Slytherin boys, kicking, punching, not caring what damage he was doing to them or himself.

Crabbe fell backwards over the seat with Cloud on top of him; he gripped his hands around Crabbe's throat... Goyle pulled him off and Cloud kicked him viciously; he rolled over and leapt up at Goyle, his fist connecting with the boy's head, but then Crabbe charged into him from behind, he felt an immense pain in his head, and then... nothing.

**(A/N: I seem to remember it was Tifa in FFVII who said that Cloud used to get in a lot of fights as a kid. In this story, that's something he's trying to avoid, although not very successfully in this instance. Oh yeah, I haven't stated it specifically but I hope it comes across that Cloud, Vincent, Tifa and Aerith are now friends. Their friendship is still in its infancy at this stage, but you'll be seeing them more as a group from now on. **

**Next chapter... Cloud isn't going to take this any more. He wants revenge...)**


	7. Of Thieves and Slytherins

**(Just so you know, we're over halfway through the first year now. In terms of word count, this is a short novella, not an epic.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or Harry Potter. Square Enix and JK Rowling do.)**

He woke up to find himself in the hospital wing. Cloud groaned as memories flooded back over him... Malfoy's taunting, how he had attacked Crabbe and Goyle. I'm going to be in so much trouble, he thought. I promised myself I wouldn't get into any fights.

"Cloud?"

He sat up, wincing as his head throbbed. Aerith was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"Oh, you're awake!"

"How long have I been out for?"

"All last night and most of this morning. Madam Pomfrey said it was best to let you wake up naturally."

"The match..." said Cloud, still feeling woozy. "Did we win?"

Aerith grinned. "We think it's a record. Harry caught the Snitch in less than five minutes." She poked his chest playfully. "But you didn't see any of it, did you? I heard that you beat up two Slytherin boys."

"I think it would be more accurate to say they beat me up," said Cloud ruefully.

"You gave Crabbe a wonderful bruise on the cheek. Oh, and that other boy gave Malfoy a black eye." She giggled. "They all looked like two-legged pandas after you'd finished with them!"

"I guess... I probably look the same."

"That's a nasty bruise you've got on your temple. Here, let me help you." She took a damp flannel from the bedside table next to her and pressed it to his forehead. The cold touch soothed his aching head for a little while.

"Wait... I can cure this."

"You can do a healing spell by yourself?" said Aerith in surprise. "But we don't learn anything about that in the first year."

"I have a materia."

"You have a materia too? Oh, let me see. What kind is it?"

"It's a Restore materia." He rummaged in the pocket of his robes. His hand scrabbled around for a while but felt only folds of cloth. "It's gone!"

"You lost it?"

Cloud shook his head in despair. "Oh, no..."

"You probably dropped it during the fight. We can go and look for it later if you want."

"Yeah, I guess."

Aerith put the flannel back on the bedside table. He looked at it. A huge bunch of flowers in a vase covered most of the surface. Aerith saw where he was looking and grinned.

"I brought you flowers as a get-well soon present," she said. "Do you like them? Their scent is supposed to aid recovery."

"They smell nice." The flowers' aroma was subtle, but soothing. It reminded him slightly of lavender.

Aerith tilted her head on one side. "You know, Tifa stayed with you most of last night. She was really worried about you. She only left because Madam Pomfrey made her."

"Really?" He hadn't realised Tifa cared about him that much.

"Yeah." Aerith was watching him carefully, gauging his reaction. "She's sleeping now. She's tired out, poor girl. So I said I'd come down this morning to see how you were."

"Oh."

Aerith took his hand, which was lying on the bed cover. "I'm glad you're all right, Cloud," she said softly. "I was really worried about you too."

Cloud looked down in surprise. Her skin was pale and soft, and he had to admit that he liked the feel of her hand on his. "Th-thanks," he stuttered.

"I like you a lot, Cloud." Aerith leaned down closer to him. Her green eyes were wide and earnest.

"Is Cloud awake?" Madam Pomfrey, the matron had bustled in. "Move over, will you, Aerith. I can fix his bruises now."

Aerith stood back. Madam Pomfrey held a tub containing some kind of paste. She dabbed some of it on Cloud's forehead, pointed her wand at him and he felt his bruises vanish instantly.

"Are you feeling all right now?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Very well, then. You may go."

He climbed out of bed and brushed down his robes. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what kind of state it would be in. Not good, probably. Aerith gave him a knowing smile.

"Shall we go and look for your materia, Cloud?"

He nodded. "Okay."

They left the hospital wing.

**xxxxx**

Cloud and Aerith walked along the deserted Quidditch pitch.

"So, which stand were you in?"

"The far one."

"Let's look there then."

The day was another chilly one. Frost coated the pitch, and white clouds scudded across an icy blue sky. Cloud searched along the empty seats, but the place was desolate. Not even a few sweet wrappers.

Aerith crouched down and peered under the seats. "Cloud, what does your materia look like?"

"It's green," he told her. "A glowing green orb."

She pressed her finger to her lips. "Hmm, I don't think it's here. Maybe somebody found it."

Cloud suddenly smacked his hand on his forehead.

"I think I understand now!"

Aerith put her hands on her hips. "Understand what? Are you telling me you know where the materia is?"

"I didn't lose it here at all. I lost it when... well..." He didn't want to tell her. He shuffled his feet and stared at the ground, embarrassed.

"What?" Aerith leaned forward and slanted her head up to his so she could see his expression beneath his spiky hair. "You can tell me. I promise I won't laugh."

Cloud hesitated, but he decided to tell her.

"I didn't realise what a meanie Malfoy is!" she said indignantly when he told her how Malfoy had cursed him.

"Anyway, I tried to get back up to the common room, and on the sixth floor I met Yuffie. She helped me up the staircase."

"That was nice of her," said Aerith. "See, Yuffie is a sweet girl, even though she's a Slytherin. I told you not all Slytherins are bad!"

"No, you don't understand," said Cloud patiently. "I think Yuffie stole my materia. It would have been easy for her to pick my pocket while she was helping me."

"Why would Yuffie do that?"

"She's been after my materia for ages. She's got some sort of obsession with them."

"Hmm. Well, it's a good thing I keep my materia safe!"

"Where do you keep your materia?"

Aerith turned her head coyly. "It's a secret."

"I'll have to get the materia back," Cloud decided. "I won't let a thief get away with my stuff!"

"Yeah!" said Aerith. "Tifa and Vincent and I will help you! We'll call it Operation Slytherin! We'll have to work out a way to find out where the materia is, and then steal it right back!"

"Right," said Cloud. Her excitement was rubbing off on him.

**xxxxx**

In a secluded corner of the library, four first-year students sat in comfortable red armchairs around a table, plotting.

"The first thing we need to do," said Vincent, "is to find out whether Yuffie really does have the materia and where she keeps it."

Tifa frowned at Cloud. "Are you sure she stole it?"

"Yeah, pretty sure," he said, but doubts were beginning to surface. He could have lost the materia any time between when Malfoy had cursed him and when he had discovered it was missing.

"Cloud thinks so, and I believe him," said Aerith firmly.

"We all know Yuffie's a cunning sneak," said Vincent.

Tifa raised her eyebrows at him. "Do we? Aerith, I thought she was your friend. You invited her to that party anyway."

"Yes, she was my friend," said Aerith. "But she's not any more."

"So you couldn't ask her if she has the materia?"

"I don't think she'd admit she'd stolen it to me. She knows I'm friends with Cloud."

"I bet she's told the other Slytherins," said Cloud bitterly. "They're probably all laughing at me right now."

Vincent's dark eyes bored into Aerith's emerald ones. "You know what this calls for, don't you?"

She clapped her hands. "Infiltration!"

Cloud didn't understand what they meant. He looked at Tifa and she shrugged.

"All we have to do is get close to one of the Slytherins who knows Yuffie. Get into their common room if we can. Yuffie probably hides the materia somewhere in her dormitory."

Realisation dawned in Tifa's eyes. "So one of us has to make friends with a Slytherin."

Vincent regarded Cloud critically. "You can't do it," he said. "Slytherins hate Gryffindors anyway..."

"And me in particular," Cloud finished.

"I bet you'd be a good spy, Vincent," said Tifa. Cloud narrowed his eyes at the two of them. Tifa certainly seemed to respect the black-haired boy a lot. He felt a twinge of jealousy.

But Vincent shook his head. "I don't think the Slytherins trust me. I guess I'm not... approachable enough."

"I'll do it," said Aerith. Her mouth was set in a determined line.

"Aerith, I'm not sure I want you to get involved," Cloud began. "This is my problem... I wouldn't want you to get into trouble because of me."

"Don't be silly! We're all here to help you. That's what friends are for, right? Anyway..." Aerith giggled. "I think this'll be fun. I'd love to have a snoop round the Slytherin common room."

Tifa stared at her. "Aerith, you're not taking this seriously. I'm not sure this is a good idea-"

The other girl waved her hand dismissively. "Stop being so serious, Tifa! Here's the plan. I'll make friends with one of the Slytherins and persuade them to let me into their common room. It should be easy. Then all I have to do is ask them where Yuffie's materia is and I'll steal it right back!"

"That sounds good," said Vincent. "But which Slytherin is it going to be?"

Aerith suddenly giggled again. Cloud noticed a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "I think this should be a revenge mission too. Cloud, wouldn't you like to get Draco Malfoy back for what he did to you?"

"Huh?" said Tifa. "I know you don't like him, but what has he done to you now?"

"Too much," Cloud muttered. "Yeah, I'd like to get revenge."

"We'll make him pay for cursing you!" said Aerith.

"He cursed you?" said Tifa. "And you told Aerith, but not me?" She looked hurt.

Cloud stared at the floor awkwardly. No-one said anything for a moment. Then Vincent spoke.

"What are you planning to do about Malfoy?"

"I'm not sure yet," said Aerith, "but I think he likes me. It'll be easy to get close to him. We can use to him to get back Cloud's materia..."

"Hey, wait," said Cloud. "What do you mean, you think Malfoy likes you?"

"Ooh, are you jealous?" Aerith asked slyly, tilting her head. Tifa looked away, and the other girl continued oblivious. "I told Draco that I wanted all the houses to be friends. He probably thinks I'm some silly idealistic Ravenclaw, but he'd never think I'd set out to trick him! I can just pretend I want to be friends with the Slytherins. I think I know how to do it. You can get anywhere with a bit of flattery."

"Hmm, cunning," said Vincent. He regarded her approvingly. "I like it. If we can get the materia back and trick Malfoy as well, it'll be mission successful."

"I know what we should do," said Tifa suddenly. "We'll set Draco up and make it look like he stole the materia from Yuffie."

"Can't you pour Wartcap powder in his bed or something too?" asked Cloud.

The others all gave him weird looks.

"Hey, I just don't like the guy," he muttered.

"Looks like I'm going to busy," said Aerith. "You name it, I'll sabotage it! Slytherin are going to be sorry they ever messed with us!"

"Wow, you've changed your tune," Tifa smiled at her friend. "Not spreading the love anymore, are we?"

"Nope. Revenge is so much more fun!"

They laughed, and started imagining all the pranks they could pull on Yuffie, Malfoy and his cronies. As Cloud sat there laughing and talking with them, he realised that he really did have friends now. Loyal friends who wanted to help him. He felt a warm glow diffuse inside him. Now he could finally stand up to Malfoy properly.

**(Next chapter... Operation Slytherin begins to get underway but we have an interruption in the form of a certain dragon...)**


	8. Of Letters and Dragons

**(Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor FFVII. They belong to JK Rowling and Square-Enix.)**

During the Easter holidays, Cloud took a trip to Diagon Alley and bought Wartcap powder, a bottle of red permanent ink, a few Dungbombs and a teacup which would spit out any liquid you put in it if you tried to drink it. He smirked as he made his purchases, imagining Malfoy's face when he discovered his dormitory had been sabotaged.

Aerith hadn't yet asked Draco to let her in the Slytherin common room, but he had invited her over to stay at his mansion one weekend in the holidays, so Cloud could only assume that her plan was working. She had sent him owls telling him about Malfoy's mansion, which was apparently full of magical artefacts, and made fun of the boy's father, whom she described as 'a snobby old git'.

'Draco really loves to boast!' she wrote. 'He couldn't wait to tell me how he cursed you. Actually, you're not the only one if he's telling the truth. He likes to strut around the school, making fun of everybody. He can be really witty so it's not hard to laugh at his jokes. You should see him grooming himself as well! He spends about an hour smoothing that greasy blond hair. I really think we should sabotage his hair products. That would kill him. I know you're already getting lots of stuff for Operation Slytherin, so I asked Tifa to buy some hair dye. I'm gonna pour it into his hair potion. I won't tell you what colour though. It'll be a surprise!'

Cloud chuckled at the thought. Aerith wasn't his only correspondent either. To his surprise, a long-eared owl had flown through his open window on the night of Good Friday, carrying with it a letter from Vincent.

'Dear Cloud,' (Vincent wrote) – 'how are you? I just thought I'd write to tell you that my part in Operation Slytherin is going smoothly. I knew that my father had an Invisibility Cloak somewhere. I found it stashed in a chest in the basement. It's old and a bit dusty, but I washed it and tried it on and it works fine. I'm taking a serious risk bringing the Cloak to Hogwarts. My father will kill me if he finds out, so you can't have it for long. As soon as the mission is over, I'm sending it back. My house elf has promised to hide it where it belongs and not whisper a word to anybody.

Send my regards to Tifa.

Vincent.'

Vincent's a cool guy, Cloud decided. He'd never been certain that he liked the quiet pale-faced boy before. He seemed rather secretive and Cloud still wasn't quite sure if he had a grudge against Malfoy too. Whenever he spoke of the blond-haired Slytherin, his mouth would curl in disdain. Obviously, Vincent didn't like him, and that was enough for Cloud.

Ghost was kept busy when he sent replies to Aerith and Vincent. His mother noticed and she seemed pleased.

"Looks like you're quite popular, Cloud!" she said, while Cloud was sitting at the kitchen table composing his latest reply to Aerith. He grunted. She walked over and tried to sneak a peek at his letter.

"Hey!" He covered up his spiky handwriting with both hands.

"Sorry, is that a private letter?"

"Yeah, it is, so stop noseying!"

"Who are you writing to?" She grinned widely. "Do you have a girlfriend, Cloud?"

He pulled a face. "No!"

"I guess you're a bit young yet. Believe me, one day you'll be interested in girls. I bet they'll all be after you."

He grunted again. Sometimes it was best just to allow his mother to let off steam. Once she started talking, there was no stopping her. He switched off the noise of her babble in the background and concentrated on finishing his letter. He sat back and read through it again.

'Hi. This is Cloud. Thank-you for your letter. I am doing ok in Niblehem. The wether is nice here. I have all the stuff we decided to get from Diagon Ally. Hair die is a good idea. I will ask Tifa what colour she got. And I will say hi to Tifa for you, she is doing well but her dad wont let me in the house so I will have to find her outside. See you at school. Cloud.'

It wasn't very interesting to read, he thought miserably. He didn't have Aerith's knack for writing fun, conversational letters. Or even Vincent's neat handwriting and carefully composed sentences. He hadn't even managed to write in a straight line on the parchment. The handwriting wobbled all over the place. It'll have to do, he thought. She didn't seem to mind the last one anyway.

He folded up the parchment and stuffed it into an envelope. In clumsy, large lettering, he wrote 'Airith Gainsbrogh' on the envelope. He went outside the front door to find Ghost. It was evening, so she was probably out hunting, but he hoped she hadn't gone too far. He gave a high, piercing whistle, and was gratified to see a pale shape swoop down to his outstretched arm a few minutes later.

"Hey, my Ghost," he whispered, stroking her pale feathers. She stared at him with those soft black eyes in her heart-shaped face. "This is for Aerith, again, okay?" He tied the letter to her leg. "Have a safe journey."

She took off silently and he watched her fly into the gloom until the darkness had swallowed her up.

**xxxxx**

"You seen what happened to Ron?" asked Barret.

"No, what?" said Cid.

Cloud pricked up his ears. They were in the dormitory, getting ready for bed.

"He got bit by summat. Wouldn't say what it was though. He's in the hospital wing."

Cid laughed. "What an idiot. Where did it get him?"

"Arm," grunted Barret. "I saw him earlier; it's gone all green."

"That I gotta see." Cid made to get out of bed but Barret shook his head.

"They won't be letting anyone in the hospital now. You'll have to wait."

"But what could have bit him?" Cloud wondered out loud.

Barret shrugged. "Anything. Mad cat, or an owl, or maybe there's summat poisonous slithering around."

"Like a Slytherin!" said Cid. They laughed. "Or – wait – I know. Must've been a mad chocobo. We all know there's one lurking around here. In this room, in fact."

Cloud looked around, images of crazy killer chocobos flashing through his head, before he realised that Cid was actually cracking a joke at his expense.

**xxxxx**

"There's something I've got to tell you," said Aerith. He had just emerged from a Herbology class, and she pulled him aside, behind the last greenhouse.

"Can't you tell Tifa and Vincent too?" asked Cloud blankly.

"No, I think you're the one who should know. It's about your friend Harry Potter."

Now Cloud was even more confused. He hadn't talked to Harry that much in the past few weeks. The exams were coming up, so everyone was getting stressed out revising, but Harry and Hermione in particular seemed preoccupied. He supposed it was because they were worried about their friend Ron.

"What about him?"

"Draco... I was talking to him today and he seemed all excited. He told me that Hagrid's keeping a baby dragon in his hut."

Cloud's head reeled. "_What_?"

"I know, but you mustn't say anything, or Hagrid'll get into trouble."

"But Hagrid lives in a wooden house!" He had seen the gamekeeper's hut in the grounds, though he had never visited it. It seemed the giant man had a few secrets of his own.

"Yes, well, I think that Harry, Ron and Hermione have been helping him look after it, but it's grown too big now, so they're going to send it away. Tonight."

"And I need to know this because..."

"Because Draco's planning to find a teacher and tell them! He's going to get them into so much trouble, they'll be expelled! You have to warn Harry."

"You're right," said Cloud. "And I have to stop Malfoy. We're the ones sabotaging _him_; we can't let him get away with this!"

"You'd better go and find them right away then," said Aerith. "I've been looking for you all day; I can't believe I only found you at the end of the last lesson!"

The sun was setting. "We'd better go," said Cloud.

He made his way back to Gryffindor Tower as quickly as he could. He scanned the common room, but neither Harry nor Hermione were there. Where could they be? He ran up to his dormitory, but it was empty. He walked back down, and sat in a quiet corner of the common room, pretending to be revising. He'd wait here until they arrived, and warn them.

**xxxxx**

Cloud stirred, stretched his arms, and yawned. What time was it? He opened his eyes. I'm in the common room, he realised. Why did I fall asleep in the common room?

Then it struck him. "Oh, no!"

He looked at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. Harry and Hermione would be out there somewhere in the castle with an illegal baby dragon. And somewhere Malfoy would be sneaking around, trying to get them caught.

There might still be time. He had to warn them. He stumbled out of the soft armchair and opened the portrait hole. He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the darkness. Then he set off. He didn't know where he was going. All he knew was that he had to find Harry and Hermione.

He blundered through the dark corridors, not daring to call out. He felt as if he was half in a dream. Here and there, a portrait's occupant snored; otherwise the castle was eerily silent.

Suddenly a wand light flashed in his eyes. He froze.

"Cloud Strife, what on _earth_ are you doing on the corridors at this time of night?"

"I... I..."

Professor McGonagall's stare could have frozen a desert. "Come with me, Strife." Her face was white; she looked absolutely furious. He trailed after her, his heart sinking with every step. I failed you, Harry, he thought. I'm sorry. So sorry for my stupidity. He couldn't do anything right on his own. He blinked tears out of his eyes as Professor McGonagall stopped outside her office.

"I hope you have a good excuse ready!" she snapped at him.

Maybe he should tell her. "Professor, I overheard Draco Malfoy today. There's a dragon being taken out of Hogwarts tonight and he wanted to catch the culprits..." He trailed off, realising it was no use.

She stared at him, breathing hard through her nose. "I've never heard such nonsense in all my life." She opened the door to her office and pushed him in.

Cloud gaped. Harry and Hermione were already there, looking very sorry for themselves. They stared at him in astonishment.

"Cloud, what...?" Harry began.

Professor McGonagall silenced him with a look. "Four students out of bed at one o'clock in the morning! _Explain_!"

Malfoy was there too, he noticed, looking rather smug. He felt a rush of hatred towards the boy. He would definitely be pressing on with Operation Slytherin after this.

Both Harry and Hermione opened their mouths and started making excuses.

"I won't have any of this nonsense about a dragon!" said Professor McGonagall. "As if it wasn't bad enough that you tricked young Mr Malfoy here into thinking you were smuggling a dragon out of the castle, Cloud here overheard the story and believed it too!"

Cloud's eyes widened. Was it all a trick? Harry gazed at him desperately, and he looked into those bright green eyes, seeing only honesty and compassion there. He bowed his head. Well, it didn't really matter if the dragon story was true now. They were all in big trouble.

"I shall take fifty points from Gryffindor!" Professor McGonagall was saying. No, thought Cloud, they would lose the lead Harry had won in the last Quidditch match. "Fifty points _each_! And you will each serve detention – yes, you too, Mr Malfoy, _nothing_ gives you the right to wander the corridors at night."

He gasped. They'd just lost one hundred and fifty points for Gryffindor. It was a disaster. Neither Harry nor Hermione spoke to him as they made their miserable way back to their dormitories.

Malfoy would pay for this...

**(Next chapter... Cloud has a detention in the Forbidden Forest and Aerith sneaks into the Slytherin common room...)**


	9. Of Detentions and Deception

**(A/N: There's a very special cameo in this chapter, plus my favourite line in the whole story! Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Final Fantasy VII. That honour goes to JK Rowling and Square Enix.)**

"That didn't exactly go well then," said Tifa, after Cloud had told them about the night's events. He hung his head. The four of them were sitting in the library again. It had become a regular haunt of theirs.

Aerith patted his arm sympathetically. "Well, that's just one more thing we've got to get Malfoy back for."

"Although you did one good thing," said Vincent. "Ravenclaw have moved up to second in the house rankings."

Everyone stared at him.

"Well, you've got to look on the bright side sometimes," he muttered.

"When's your detention?" asked Tifa.

"Tonight, at eleven o' clock."

"I hope it's not too bad," she said.

"You'll be fine," said Aerith. "The Gryffindors will get over it. People lose points all the time. Only yesterday Vincent lost twenty points for spilling boiling water onto Snape's shoes."

Vincent glared at her.

"But we lost a hundred and fifty points in one go," Cloud moaned. "Everyone hates me. I can't even go into my dormitory without Cid and Barret throwing chocobo action figures at me."

"Oh, stop whining," said Aerith. "Let's talk about something fun! I know – here's some news for you. Yuffie definitely has stolen your materia, Cloud. Draco told me that she was showing off her materia collection a few days ago. And there was a Restore materia in there, so it must be yours. Draco confides in me a lot now. I think he trusts me. I think it's time to move onto Phase B of Operation Slytherin!"

"What's Phase B?" asked Tifa.

"Oh, I just made it up. It means I'm going to ask Draco to let me in the Slytherin common room. He loves showing off, I bet if I ask to see something in his dormitory, he won't be able to resist."

Vincent raised his eyebrows. "You're going into his dormitory? Are you sure that's wise?"

"I'll be fine!" said Aerith. "Tifa and I have been brewing up a potion in secret." She giggled. "Tell them, Tifa."

"We've made a Sleeping Draught," said Tifa. She pulled a tiny bottle out of her bag. "Aerith's gonna pour it into a drink and give it to Draco. He'll be out like a light. Then she can put on the Invisibility Cloak and..."

"...the fun will begin!" said Aerith. "I can't wait."

"Good luck," said Cloud. "Please, be careful. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I told you, I can take care of myself."

"You'd better hurry up," said Vincent. "The longer the Invisibility Cloak stays here, the more likely it is my father will discover it's missing. I'm putting my life on the line here."

"Don't be so dramatic, Vincent."

The dark-haired boy looked as though he might blush, except that his skin was so pale it couldn't quite manage it.

The bell rang.

"Gotta go!" said Aerith. "See you later, Cloud!"

"Bye, Cloud!"

He smiled, and then took a deep breath. It was time to endure another lesson with the Slytherins jeering at him.

**xxxxx**

Cloud was surprised to learn that they would be serving detention with the gamekeeper, Hagrid. Wasn't it his fault that they'd all got into trouble in the first place? After all, if Malfoy had been telling the truth, it was Hagrid who had sneaked an illegal baby dragon into his cabin.

Hagrid told them that they would be going into the Forbidden Forest.

"The Forbidden Forest?" said Malfoy, a trace of panic in his voice. "But we can't go in there, it's dangerous, I've heard there are vampires and werewolves and all sorts of horrible things in there!"

Cloud didn't like the sound of that either, but Hagrid growled, "Yeh'll do what you're told, or get expelled." He explained that a unicorn had been hurt somewhere in the forest, so they were going to try and find it.

The five of them and Hagrid's wolfhound, Fang, walked into the Forest. Hagrid's lantern only threw the shadows of the trees into sharp relief, which made the place look even spookier. Above, the faint light of the glimmering stars illuminated nothing. For a while they followed the path, but then it forked.

"All right, we'll split up," said Hagrid. "Fang can go with one group, an' I'll stick with the other."

"I'll take Fang," said Malfoy quickly.

"All right then, but I warn yeh, he's a coward. Cloud, you go with Malfoy and Fang. Me, Harry an' Hermione'll take the right hand path."

Cloud groaned inwardly. Why did he get stuck with Malfoy? He gritted his teeth and set off next to Malfoy, Fang trotting ahead with his tail wagging. For a while they didn't say anything.

Cloud looked up, but he couldn't see any sky. It was completely covered by a canopy of dark trees. He looked around. Malfoy had vanished. Why wasn't the boy next to him? He stopped.

"Malfoy?" he said uncertainly. The shadows lengthened. A few bushes rustled. He thought he heard a twig snap behind him and spun on his heels, but he couldn't see more than a few yards ahead in the gloom. "Malfoy, this isn't funny!" He didn't like being on his own here. He could hear his heart beating fast.

Something pushed him, hard. As he toppled over, he heard something roaring and his heart leapt into his mouth. Panic-stricken, he sent up red sparks with his wand.

The sound of laughter reached his ears. He sat up panting, his face dirty, and saw Malfoy standing there with his arms crossed, almost crying with mirth.

"You...!"

Malfoy managed to get his breath back. "I didn't think even you would fall for a trick like that, Chocobo-head! Did the nasty dark forest scare you?" he asked in a mock baby voice.

Cloud pointed his wand at Malfoy. His muscles were still tense with fear, shooting blood around his body.

"Going to fight me?" scoffed Malfoy, brandishing his own wand. "You couldn't take me, Strife, you haven't got the brains."

"You just wait," said Cloud icily.

"Cloud! Malfoy? Are yeh all right?" a voice called. They heard the stamping of his enormous feet as Hagrid ran up to them, huffing and puffing. "Yeh haven' bin attacked, have yeh?"

Cloud got to his feet. "No. Malfoy jumped me from behind. I sent up the red sparks."

Hagrid gave Malfoy a dirty look. The blond boy smirked and folded his arms.

"Right, get back here," he growled. "I'll have ter split you up. Stupid kids."

They retraced their steps until they found Harry and Hermione waiting for them.

"I'll go with Cloud and Hermione," said Hagrid. "Harry, you go with Fang an' this idiot."

He sounded angry. It's my fault, thought Cloud. If only I wasn't scared so easily... He felt sick with himself. He shouldn't have fallen for Malfoy's trick. He should have cursed him while he had the chance.

"Cloud?" said Hermione timidly.

He looked at her.

"Are – are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"How are you feeling about the exams?"

This was how she tried to make conversation? Cloud decided to humour her. At least it was something to talk about.

"Okay, I guess. There's so much to learn." And he hadn't been spending enough time revising, he thought guiltily. The exams are only a week away. I've been plotting too much...

"I know!" said Hermione. "I've memorised the Charms book and all my History of Magic notes of course, but I'm getting worried about Transfiguration, I'm not sure I properly understood that bit about organic and non-organic materials, and as for Potions, well I missed a couple of lessons back in October and Snape wouldn't let me do the experiments so I'm bound to fail the practical part if the Hair-Thickening Solution comes up-" She paused for breath and Cloud interrupted her before she could get into full flow.

"Hey, slow down, will you. You've helped me in Potions, I'm sure you'll do fine."

She smiled at him.

"I think we might be following the wrong trail here," said Hagrid. He stopped and they almost walked into him. "No trace of unicorn blood. It musta gone down the other path. Let's go back."

Hagrid led them back to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, near his hut. "You two go back to yeh dormitories," he told them. "I'm going to find Harry and Malfoy."

They nodded.

"I hope Harry's okay," said Hermione worriedly.

"Me too," said Cloud. "He seems to get into trouble a lot."

She laughed. "You could say that. Oh, Cloud, I think I should tell you. About the dragon... we didn't make it up, I swear. And... and thanks for coming to warn us. That was really nice of you."

"No problem," said Cloud. He felt his heart lighten. "What happened to the dragon?"

"It's gone," she assured him. "Some friends of ours took it away."

"Good," said Cloud. Hermione seemed nicer than he had remembered.

They reached the Gryffindor common room.

"Well, good night, Cloud," said Hermione.

"Good night."

**xxxxx**

Aerith checked her bag one last time.

"Got everything?"

"Invisibility Cloak – check! Sleeping Draught – check! Dungbombs – check!" She went through every item they had brought to sabotage Malfoy, Yuffie and the Slytherins. Cloud was particularly amused by the hair dye.

"Where did you find that colour, Tifa?" he asked.

Tifa grinned. "Oh, it took me a while, but you'd be surprised how many colours they stock in the city."

"Are you ready, Aerith?" asked Vincent.

Aerith stood up and slung her pink bag over her back. Her eyes sparkled. "Ready!"

"Then let's go!"

The four of them made their way down to the Entrance Hall where Malfoy was due to meet Aerith. Cloud, Tifa and Vincent lurked at the top of the staircase, watching and trying not to snigger.

Malfoy was already waiting for Aerith. He was by himself. They exchanged a few words, Aerith gave a silky laugh and then they crossed the hall and went through a door leading down to the dungeons.

"Shall we follow them?" Cloud whispered.

"Yeah," said Tifa, "but try not to look suspicious!" They crept after Aerith and Malfoy, hiding behind statues wherever they could. Luckily, the corridors were quite busy, as many people had just returned from the evening meal in the Great Hall.

Malfoy led them down into a dungeon. He spoke the password to a bare stretch of wall. Then he held out his arm to Aerith, and, grinning, she took it. They stepped into the Slytherin common room and the wall closed behind them.

"We have mission successful!" said Vincent.

"Oh yeah!"

The three of them clapped their hands together.

"I wish I could be in there to see his face when he wakes up!" said Cloud.

"What are you lurking around here for?" a cold voice interrupted them. They jumped and turned around. A Slytherin fourth-year was staring at them suspiciously. His eyes were green like Aerith's, but they lacked Aerith's warmth. But the most unusual thing about him was his hair. It was long and a pale silvery colour.

"Wow, you went grey early," said Cloud.

The boy's face darkened. "It's silver. How dare you speak to me in that way. Get out!"

"Hey, you're not a prefect," said Vincent. "You can't tell us to do anything."

The boy glared at him. "You're not Slytherins, are you?"

"No, we're Ravenclaws," said Tifa, who looked a little intimidated by the tall fourth-year.

"Well, what are you doing down here?"

"None of your business," said Vincent smoothly.

The boy took out his wand and pointed it at them. They backed away. "I'm not having insolent first-years talking to me like that," he said. "Now run before I turn you into slimy little toads."

They ran.

"He wasn't very friendly, was he?" Tifa gasped, when they had reached the fourth floor.

"I don't think you should have told him his hair had gone grey," said Vincent.

"Sorry, I just said the first thing that came into my head."

"Now what are we gonna do?"

"Rendezvous at the library," said Vincent.

"Ren-day what?" said Cloud.

"It means we're going to meet Aerith at the library when she's completed her mission," said Vincent patiently.

"Oh."

**(Next chapter... find out how Aerith got on with Operation Slytherin, the gang take their exams, and something evil is afoot... )**


	10. Of Summons and Sabotage

**(Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and Harry Potter are property of Square-Enix and JK Rowling respectively.)**

An hour later, Aerith joined them in the library, her face flushed. She held out a sparkling green orb to Cloud.

"My materia!"

"That's right!" said Aerith. "Operation Slytherin was a complete success!"

"Tell us!"

Aerith slumped down into an overstuffed armchair and let out a contented sigh. "Of course! It's a thrilling story."

"Get on with it," said Vincent.

Aerith poked him, and then began her story.

"When I went into the common room with Draco, I was afraid that one of the other Slytherins would recognise me, and know that I shouldn't be there. But there were only a few people there and most of them were fifth-years, so they didn't take much notice of us. You know, I'm glad I'm not in Slytherin. Their common room is so horrible. It's like a dungeon, all dark and made of stone.

"I asked Draco if we could go up to his dormitory, because it was more private, and he said yes. He wanted to show me some stupid photo album of him and his friends." Aerith rolled her eyes. "Like I'd be interested, but I pretended to be anyway. We went up there and the dormitory was empty. It stank, I tell you. Ugh. Boys stink. They've got four poster beds like we have, only with horrible green hangings. There are snake decorations everywhere too, even on the door handles.

"I offered Draco a drink of this special wine I'd brought. The idiot fell for it straight away; as soon as I mentioned alcohol he couldn't wait. He was boasting about how he drinks champagne at home and stuff, and his father even let him try Firewhisky. He was sitting on his bed, and he took about five sips before he just keeled over mid-sentence!" She laughed. "It was sooo funny. Well, I searched around his bedside cabinet and I found his hair potion. It was half-full, so it was easy to pour the hair dye into it and shake it up. Then I put some of the Wartcap powder in his bed, and planted the spitting teacup on his bedside table.

"That only took a few minutes, so I decided it was time to find Cloud's materia. I put on the Invisibility Cloak. It was so weird; I looked in the mirror and there was nothing there. I couldn't even see my own feet. Anyway, I crept downstairs, and then went into the girl's dormitories. I checked every one. There was a girl already in one of them who gave the door a funny look when it just creaked open by itself, but obviously she couldn't see me, so I don't think she suspected anything. Yuffie's was the third dormitory I checked. It was obvious which bed was hers; she had pictures of herself on the table. And then I looked under the bed, and pulled out a box full of materia."

"Just how much materia has she got?" asked Cloud curiously.

"A few. I don't know how much of it actually belongs to her though. There was a yellow one and a couple of blue ones and a green one. I nabbed all the materia and hid it in my bag. Then I did some sabotaging of Yuffie's room too. I put Wartcap powder in her bed and then I got a big sheet of parchment and wrote 'Thief' on it in huge writing with permanent ink. I pinned the parchment on the bed hangings, and left the empty materia box on her bed."

"I bet she'll be furious when she finds out!" said Tifa.

"What did you do with the rest of the materia?"

"Oh, this is the best bit," said Aerith. "I crept back up to Draco's dormitory. He was still there, snoring really loudly. I stashed the rest of Yuffie's materia in his bag."

"Ah!" said Vincent. "If Yuffie discovers Malfoy with her materia, she'll be very angry."

"Yep!" said Aerith happily. "And then I ran back down to the common room, let off the Dungbombs and escaped as quickly as I could."

"That's great!" said Cloud.

"Team Gryffinclaw one, Slytherin nil!" said Tifa. "Oh yeah!"

**xxxxx**

The exams were upon them. Cloud had already struggled through a difficult Transfiguration exam, in which he had tried to turn a mouse into a snuff-box, but it was all worth it when he went down to Snape's dungeon for the Potions exam and saw Malfoy wearing a tall wizard's hat which failed to completely cover his bright pink hair.

The only problem was that he was sniggering so much he completely forgot how to brew a Forgetfulness Potion.

Just before the last exam, History of Magic, Yuffie marched up to Cloud. The day was warm and sunny and he was sitting in the shadow of a beech tree near the lake, doing some last-minute revision.

Yuffie stamped her feet. He nearly dropped his notes.

"Hey! What do you want?"

"I think you've got something that belongs to me, Strife," she said.

"No, I don't think I have."

"Yes, you have! Somebody's stolen all my materia and I think it's you!"

"I haven't stolen your materia," said Cloud. "I've just got back what's rightfully mine. But I know who has stolen your materia."

"Who? You'd better not be lying to me, Strife, or I'll jinx you into next Wednesday!"

"I think you might want to check Draco Malfoy's stuff."

"Draco, huh? Well, he does look the shifty sort. But I swear, Cloud, if I so much as _suspect_ you had something to do with this, I'll..."

"Jinx me into next Wednesday, yeah."

Yuffie glared at him and then she stomped off. Cloud smiled to himself. He suspected Malfoy would be getting a black eye pretty soon. Malfoy couldn't admit to Yuffie that it was Aerith who had stolen the materia, because that would mean confessing that he had let Aerith into the Slytherin dungeon in the first place, and he had no proof anyway.

**xxxxx**

Cloud emerged from the last exam, feeling a mixture of relief and stress because he didn't think he'd done very well. Too late now though.

He waited outside in the grounds for Aerith, Tifa and Vincent to meet him as they had planned. They were going to celebrate the end of the exams by going to the Quidditch pitch and persuading a few people to join them in a game. He knew Cid and Barret would be up for it. And he could try out his new broom in a proper game. He'd only used it in flying lessons so far, which he wasn't bad at.

But when Aerith and Tifa walked up to him, all thoughts of Quidditch fled from his mind. Tifa was supporting the other girl, who meandered along in a slow, dreamy way, almost dragging her feet.

"Aerith! What's wrong?"

"I think she might be suffering from heatstroke or exam stress or something," Tifa whispered.

"No... I'm not," said Aerith. She spoke in her usual light voice, but it had a slightly ethereal quality to it that made Cloud shiver. "Let me... sit down."

They helped her over to the beech tree where Cloud had revised earlier, and sat on a grassy embankment overlooking the lake.

"The planet... is calling me," Aerith whispered. "Speak to me, Planet. What? I can't hear you."

Cloud and Tifa looked at each other.

"Has she still been having those nightmares?" Cloud murmured.

"I think so," said Tifa. "Only she's getting better at hiding it. It makes me think that this whole Operation Slytherin thing is like a game she's been playing to distract us. I think she's been sensing it all along."

"Sensing what?"

Tifa didn't answer.

Cloud looked at Aerith's face. The girl was staring into the distance, but her eyes weren't unfocused. On the contrary, it looked as though she was focusing on something he couldn't see, something beyond ordinary sight. He had never seen her face so clear.

"Oh!" said Aerith. "Oh, no!"

"What? What is it?" asked Cloud, feeling wretched.

Aerith shook her head. "We have to hurry! The badness... the evil that the Planet's watching over – it's so close to coming back! So close! We have to warn someone!"

"Who?"

"Dumbledore," said Tifa firmly. "That's who. He's the headmaster, and he's supposed to be a really powerful wizard. Maybe he'll know what Aerith is talking about. He'll know what to do."

"Yeah, you're right," said Cloud. "Come on, Aerith. Let's go and find him."

Aerith nodded. She seemed to have come back to herself; she sat up straight unsupported and looked directly at Cloud. "But I don't think he knows that I'm a Cetra. It isn't something you go round telling everybody about. I've only told you because you're my closest friends."

"It doesn't matter," said Cloud. "We'll make him listen."

The three of them hurried into the Entrance Hall. There they saw Professor McGonagall, who had just emerged from the Great Hall.

"Professor!" said Tifa.

Professor McGonagall looked at them with raised eyebrows. "Yes, Miss Lockhart?"

"Professor, we'd like to talk to Professor Dumbledore. Do you know where he is?"

The stern witch's eyebrows contracted. "I'm afraid you've just missed him. He received an urgent owl from the Ministry only a few moments ago. He just left."

They gaped at her.

"Whatever it is, it can wait. The Headmaster is a very busy man," said Professor McGonagall. "Now I suggest you all go outside and enjoy the sunshine." She walked off.

"This isn't good," said Cloud.

"With Dumbledore gone, anything could happen," said Aerith.

"Well then, we'll just have to make sure he comes back," said Tifa. Her jaw was set; she looked more determined than Cloud had ever seen her.

"How?" asked Cloud blankly.

"He's only just left, hasn't he? If we send him a fast owl summoning him back, he might arrive in time to stop whatever it is."

"Let's do it!" said Aerith. They ran back into the grounds, towards the Owlery. Just outside the castle, they bumped into Vincent, who looked rather annoyed.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" he asked.

"Sorry, Vincent! I'll explain as we go!" said Tifa, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

They dashed up to the Owlery.

"Has anyone got some parchment?" asked Cloud, pulling a quill out of his bag.

"Here," said Vincent.

Cloud took the scrap of torn parchment, and hesitated.

"What shall I write?"

"Just say to Dumbledore that he's needed back at the school urgently! Tell him the school is in danger," said Aerith.

Cloud started to scrawl. 'Dear Dumbeldor...'

Vincent groaned. "Your writing's terrible, Cloud. I'll do it." He snatched the parchment and quill off Cloud, ripped the first line away, and wrote the summons in his neat, elegant handwriting.

"Now, whose owl is the fastest?"

"We could use my little owl," said Aerith.

"Little owls aren't fast enough."

"Use Ghost," said Cloud. "She's quick." He called the barn owl down from the rafters. Ghost looked round at them all with her liquid black eyes. She seemed to sense that this was an urgent matter because she let Vincent tie the parchment to her leg with no trouble at all and took off instantly when Cloud told her to find Dumbledore.

"That's it then," Cloud said, when the owl had gone. "We've done all we can."

"Now we just have to hope that the evil will be stopped, or that Aerith's imagining things," said Vincent.

"I'm not imagining things!" said Aerith crossly. "I'm a Cetra, remember?"

"You should have seen Aerith's snuff-box," said Tifa. "It was perfect, all decorated with flowers."

"Yours was pretty too," said Aerith.

The other girl smiled. "Thanks, but I think I did better in the other exams."

"Do you think we should wait for Dumbledore?" asked Cloud. "So Aerith can tell him what's going on. He might be confused."

"Yeah," said Vincent. "Better than staying here anyway. A tawny owl just shat on me."

Aerith giggled at the white mess on Vincent's robes. "I'll clean that up for you. _Scourgify_!"

"Thanks," he muttered.

**(A/N: I'm not sure if Aerith telling the story of her exploits rather than me showing it worked, but I couldn't really switch PoV suddenly this late on. Constructive criticism is welcomed.**

**Next chapter... Will Cloud's message reach Dumbledore before it's too late? And what do Harry, Ron and Hermione know about recent strange events?)**


	11. Of Feasts and Heroes

**(Well, this is it. The last chapter. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and I hope you find the end satisfying. I've made minor edits to all the previous chapters and the format of the story is now much more consistent.**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter or FFVII. Copyright belongs to JK Rowling and Square-Enix.) **

Their plan didn't work, however. Professor McGonagall found them skulking around the Entrance Hall.

"Get back up to your common rooms!" she exploded. "You're as bad as Potter, Weasley and Granger, thinking they know more about the school being in danger than we do."

The four friends looked at each other.

"What do you mean, Professor?" Aerith asked.

"Never you mind!"

She started to chivvy them away.

"Professor, could you just do us one favour?" asked Cloud.

"What now, Strife?"

"If Dumbledore comes back, could you tell him what Harry and the others said about the school being in danger?"

"Dumbledore won't be back tonight," said Professor McGonagall. "Go now, before I lose my patience!"

They had no choice. They walked up the marble staircase, and parted on the sixth floor.

"It's all right," said Aerith. "It hasn't happened yet. I think I'd know if it did. The planet would scream out..."

"I hope you're right," said Cloud. "Well, see you."

They nodded. Aerith and Tifa started walking together, and Vincent was just about to follow them, when Cloud stopped him.

"Vincent. Look after Aerith, will you?"

The boy's dark eyes bored into Cloud's. His expression didn't change at all, but he nodded. Cloud returned to Gryffindor Tower alone. Harry, Ron and Hermione were in the common room. They had a steely glint in their eyes that Cloud knew only too well. What were they planning?

The three of them started towards the portrait hole, but Cloud blocked them.

"You're going out again, aren't you?" he said.

"Cloud, please don't stop us," said Hermione.

"I won't let you," he said. It was dangerous out there. He couldn't let them get into trouble again, especially Harry. "You told me to stand up to people," he said.

"Yes, but not to _us_," said Ron in frustration.

Cloud decided that he should warn them about the danger outside. But if they knew something, were they going out to meet it willingly? That was crazy.

He didn't have time to say anything more. Hermione stepped forward and raised her wand.

"I'm really, really sorry, Cloud," she said. "_Petrificus Totalus_!"

This time he felt not only his legs lock together, but his whole body. His arms snapped to his sides and he keeled over. His body hit the floor with a dull thump. Pain exploded in the back of his head, and his back was bruised too. But he couldn't cry out. It was all he could do to breathe through his nose. His eyes stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. Harry, Hermione and Ron had left. He could only hope that Dumbledore would come in time to save them.

He lay unmoving, waiting for the curse to wear off.

**xxxxx**

It felt like an age, but in actual fact it was barely a minute later that a low voice muttered something and Cloud felt the magical bonds fall away from his body. He blinked in relief and sat up, ready to thank whoever it was. Then his eyes widened in shock at the person standing before him.

It was Vincent.

"How… how did you get in here?" Cloud asked.

"Not very grateful, are we?"

"How did you get in here?" Cloud repeated.

Vincent sighed. "After I took Aerith and Tifa back to their common room, I thought I'd go and try to find Potter and his friends. I arrived just as they emerged from the portrait hole and managed to slip in without them seeing me."

Cloud narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "How could you possibly do that?"

"I may have… kept the Invisibility Cloak."

"Without telling us?"

"Look, do you want to go after Potter or not?"

Cloud straightened up, a determined glint in his blue eyes. "Let's do it."

They left the common room. As they stepped into the corridor, Vincent threw the Invisibility Cloak over both of them.

"Did you see where they went?"

"I think they have an Invisibility Cloak too," Vincent whispered. "They vanished a short way down this corridor."

"So you've no idea where they've gone?"

"No."

Cloud groaned. How were they supposed to find a group of invisible students who could have gone anywhere in the school? Think, Cloud, think.

"Okay," said Cloud, "if we don't know where to find them, maybe we should go back to the Entrance Hall and meet Dumbledore. He might know something…"

"Good idea."

They crept down the deserted corridor, and Cloud took a short cut which led to the fourth floor. It was strange walking under the Invisibility Cloak; he could sense Vincent walking next to him, but it was as though his body had Transfigured into thin air. He could hear his own footsteps, feel his heart beating, his quick breaths and his muscles working, but he could see nothing. Vincent didn't speak, but one of his arms gripped Cloud's, so they kept close together and the Cloak covered them both.

The castle was strangely quiet. The only person they passed was a ghost, floating mournfully along, staring ahead with a preoccupied air. Cloud had to jump back to prevent the ghost passing right through him; he knew how unpleasant a sensation that was. Vincent stumbled then and let out a faint sound of exasperation, but luckily the ghost didn't notice. Other than that, their progress was smooth.

Finally, they descended the marble staircase and arrived in the Entrance Hall. Cloud cast around.

"Looks like Dumbledore hasn't arrived yet. I hope we haven't missed him…"

"At least McGonagall has gone."

Vincent shrugged off the Invisibility Cloak, exposing his head and torso. He pulled it off Cloud and stuffed it inside his robes. Cloud sat down at the bottom of the marble steps. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He should have gone with Harry, Hermione and Ron, instead of trying to stop them. Or at least he could have warned them… But they hadn't given him a chance. They think I'm useless, he thought. They think I'll just get in the way.

Vincent sat next to him and examined his interlocking fingers. The air was heavy with silence.

Cloud licked his dry lips. "They know something. They must do. I wonder what it is…"

"Aerith thinks it's He Who Must Not Be Named."

"But where? How would he get inside the school? What's he after?"

Vincent shrugged.

"Maybe he's after Harry," said Cloud. "Maybe he wants to finish what he started and Harry's walking into a trap." Just like that night when Malfoy challenged him to a duel, he thought.

"We can only speculate," said Vincent.

But suddenly Cloud's mind was racing… the night of the duel, when they ran away from Filch… and into the forbidden corridor on the third floor. There had lurked the monstrous three-headed dog – he'd hardly given it a second thought in recent months, but it had been there, all along – and what had Hermione said?

"_It's obviously guarding something_."

Guarding something: a secret object hidden inside the school. What if someone was after the thing that was being guarded? If it got past the three-headed dog…

Cloud stood up.

"Where are you going?" Vincent asked.

"The third floor. I think that's where Harry and his friends might have gone."

Vincent looked at him curiously. "Do you mean the forbidden corridor?"

He catches on fast, Cloud thought. "Come on," he said out loud, and without further ado dashed up the staircase. There was no time for the Invisibility Cloak now. Vincent followed; he could hear the boy panting behind him.

"But what about Dumbledore?" Vincent huffed.

"What about him indeed?" a deep voice uttered.

Cloud and Vincent both jumped. They turned. A figure they recognised stood at the foot of the marble staircase. His eyes sparkled behind his half-moon glasses and his benign face crinkled into a smile. He clutched a crumpled piece of parchment in one hand; the other held his wand.

"Professor Dumbledore!" Cloud gasped. They ran forward and Cloud immediately started gabbling out everything he knew. "Sir – Harry and his friends – I think they've gone to the forbidden corridor, sir!"

Dumbledore listened gravely but when Cloud mentioned the third floor corridor, he straightened up and his wand hand twitched.

"We must hurry," said Dumbledore. "Come."

As Cloud and Vincent tried to keep up with the Headmaster's long strides, Cloud told him about their suspicions.

"I take it you sent me that letter?" Dumbledore asked, as they ascended a spiral staircase.

Cloud nodded.

"I commend both of you for doing so. I can only hope we're not too late."

Cloud felt a chill spread through his entire body when they approached the door on the third floor corridor. Dumbledore paused.

"Wait here," he instructed them. A quick flick of his wand, and they heard the lock click. Dumbledore stepped forward, his robes billowing, and suddenly the door banged open and a girl flew out and tumbled off a broomstick. Dumbledore bent swiftly and caught her.

She straightened up, her eyes wide and frightened, her bushy hair sticking out in all directions.

"Professor – how did you – you've got to help Harry, he went to face You Know Who by himself!"

Hermione's face was white and she clutched at Dumbledore's arm with a grip that made him wince. Behind her, something (and Cloud was very sure he knew what it was) snarled.

Dumbledore gently prised Hermione's arm off his robe. "Don't worry, I'll go at once. Mr Strife, please look after Miss Granger here. Stay outside. Now, Miss Granger, do you mind if I borrow your broomstick?"

"Of course not," Hermione squeaked.

Dumbledore thrust the rolled-up parchment at Cloud, then picked up the broomstick and slipped inside the door, leaving the three students staring after him. Hermione was breathing heavily; he could see tear tracks running down her cheeks.

He's mad, thought Cloud – doesn't he know what's in there? But the snarling had ceased; instead he could hear music playing; a harp maybe. The music lasted only a few seconds and when it stopped Cloud wondered if he was hearing things. This whole day had been so hectic; he hardly knew what to think anymore. Then he noticed Hermione leaning against the wall, panting, and her eyes still dilated with fear. His head cleared.

"Are you all right?" He patted her arm, a little awkwardly.

"Yes… just out of breath."

"What happened down there?" Vincent asked. His dark eyes were alight with curiosity.

Hermione cleared her throat and as her breathing returned to normal she told them her story.

"The Philosopher's Stone – have you heard of it?"

Vincent nodded, while Cloud looked blank, but Hermione continued regardless.

"It's hidden down there," she said, "and Sn- someone was trying to steal it."

Vincent raised his eyebrows. "So you tried to get there first? You didn't tell a teacher?"

"We tried to find Professor Dumbledore," said Hermione defensively, "but he'd gone! And Professor McGonagall wouldn't believe us."

Cloud and Vincent exchanged glances. Slowly, the pieces were coming together.

"There were a lot of obstacles to get past. Ron got knocked out by a giant chess piece." She gave a tiny squeak. "It was horrible! I tried to revive him, but he was still unconscious, and I needed to go and get Dumbledore quickly. He's still down there. I do hope he's all right…"

"What about Harry?" Cloud asked.

Hermione shook her head in despair. "There was a room – it was blocked by fire; there was a potion to get through it but it was only enough for one person… Harry went to face You Know Who by himself."

Vincent stared at her incredulously. "He'll be killed!"

Hermione bit her lip; she seemed close to tears again.

"Dumbledore will save him," said Cloud firmly. "Besides, Harry defeated him when he was only a baby. This should be no problem for him." Cloud didn't really believe what he was saying, but both Vincent and Hermione's faces lit up at his words. Boosting morale, he thought – that's the best I can do, for now.

To keep Hermione distracted, he asked her how they had found out about the Philosopher's Stone. Her story surprised him. Snape, working for Lord Voldemort? The teacher was nasty, but Cloud had never imagined anything like that. Snape had planned to steal the Stone and use it to bring his master back to full power. Hermione then went on to describe the various obstacles they had faced when trying to get to the Stone, but she kept diverting from her explanations and fretting about her friends instead. Cloud could hardly blame her; he was very worried too, and he wasn't as close to Harry and Ron as Hermione was. Aerith had been right, he thought. Evil did lurk here – but Aerith was back in her common room, so he couldn't ask her if she could sense what was happening. Would she know if Voldemort's plan succeeded?

He was jolted out of his thoughts by the arrival of Dumbledore. The door to the forbidden corridor flew open once more (all three of them had moved away from it, not wanting to be too close to the monster inside) and Dumbledore strode out. He had his wand raised. The prone forms of both Harry and Ron followed him, laid out on stretchers that the Headmaster had conjured.

Hermione rushed forward. "Professor, are they all right? What happened?"

"They will be fine," Dumbledore answered. He looked weary, but his eyes twinkled more merrily than ever. "Harry managed to stop Quirrell from reaching the Philosopher's Stone in time. Lord Voldemort has fled and no-one is seriously hurt."

"Quirrell?" Hermione repeated. "It was _Quirrell_?" She frowned.

"Indeed it was. If you'd like to accompany your friends to the hospital wing, I am sure they will explain everything in due course."

Dumbledore swept Hermione and the two stretchers before him. Cloud and Vincent followed in his wake. As Hermione went on ahead, Dumbledore stopped for a moment and addressed Cloud.

"You two may go back to your common rooms," he said.

Vincent nodded, and Cloud said, "Yes, sir." But Dumbledore suddenly pressed one long-fingered hand on Cloud's shoulder.

"That was a very worthy thing you did," he said quietly. "If you hadn't sent the owl to warn me, I may not have returned in time. I award you both five points."

Cloud grinned. "Thanks, sir!"

Dumbledore smiled and his long white beard swished as he turned. Cloud and Vincent watched him catch up with Hermione, on their way to the hospital wing.

"We'd better go back ourselves," said Vincent.

"Right," said Cloud. He was feeling a huge sense of relief now. It was all over; evil had not triumphed – and he had helped to stop it! Cloud and Vincent separated on their way to their respective common rooms. Cloud grinned as he imagined how much Vincent had to tell the other Ravenclaws. He had a story of his own for the Gryffindors too.

**xxxxx**

He could hardly believe it. The end of his first year at Hogwarts. It had been an eventful year, he thought. Giant three-headed dogs, plots against Malfoy, the disastrous night of the dragon, and then finally Aerith's mysterious insights. But all was well; Lord Voldemort had not returned.

Now, at the end-of-term feast, it was clear everything was going to be all right. Unfortunately, Gryffindor had come bottom of the house championship, but considering how things might have gone, this didn't seem like too harsh a blow. He wished he didn't have to see the Slytherin banners draping the Great Hall though.

He had passed all his exams too, which was something.

Dumbledore stood up and called for attention.

"I have a few last-minute points to give out," he said. "Firstly, to Mr Ronald Weasley, for the best played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor House fifty points."

"Oh yeah!" said Cloud as the Gryffindors around him whooped and cheered. Everyone had heard the story by now (partly thanks to Vincent and Cloud telling as many people as possible), of how Harry, Ron and Hermione had gone to find the Philosopher's Stone, and got past a series of magical obstructions to get to it. There were rumours that Harry had somehow met Lord Voldemort in the final chamber. Not everyone took these rumours seriously, but Cloud knew it was true. Perhaps then Dumbledore would give out points to Hermione and Harry too...

"Second – to Miss Hermione Granger... for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor House fifty points."

The Gryffindor table were screaming with delight – they were a hundred points up.

Dumbledore's voice rose above the clamour. "And third, to Mr Harry Potter, for sheer nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor House sixty points."

Cloud cheered himself hoarse.

"You go, Harry!" Barret yelled, thumping the boy on the back. Harry grinned in an embarrassed sort of way.

"Shit," said Cid. "I just worked it out. We're level with Slytherin now. Why couldn't the old bastard have given us just one more point, dammit."

The Gryffindors held their breath, for Dumbledore was speaking again.

"There are all kinds of courage," he said, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr Cloud Strife."

Cloud gasped. Dumbledore had just given him the points that meant Gryffindor had won the House Championship!

"Never knew you had it in you, Chocobo-head!" said Cid. "Good on ya!"

Everyone was cheering and screaming. Cloud blushed.

"I think this calls for a change of decoration!" said Dumbledore. He snapped his fingers and immediately the Slytherin colours of green and silver were replaced by red and gold, and the Slytherin snake banner became a roaring Gryffindor lion.

Cloud had tears of joy in his eyes. He couldn't imagine a better ending to the year.

**(_Year the Second_… coming soon.)**


End file.
